The Kiss of the Gobboling King
by Mockingbyrd's Tune
Summary: Her stepmother wants her dead. Lady Esda must flee for her life to Draillen Wood, where spells and enchantment make havoc. Her only help and protection is the Gobboling King, a man whose touch can imprison her forever. Rated T for violence. No profanity.
1. The Castle Draill

Chapter 1: The Castle Draill

"Do you know where you are, lass?" the masked man demanded, out of breath. He crouched at the root of the dying tree where I had found refuge, wiping the wet blade of his sword upon the ground.

"No," I whispered, fixed upon the twisted, half-human carcass lying at his feet. The whole of the wood was strewn with more than fifty of the same creatures.

He slewed round warily, searching through the trees for a remnant that might give another attack. The tips of his tawny hair, dripping with sweat, peeked out beneath the brown leather head covering.

"You've trespassed on gobboling land, can't you see?" he upbraided, turning back to me. A rectangular hole in the mask revealed only his eyes, which quickly glanced my way, still scanning the wood. By his attitude I knew more of the creatures would be coming. I had to get away.

Shaking, I crawled out from between two great, bare roots, black with decay. "I know—I mean, I didn't know—I lost my direction."

"Tis a shame you didn't find it again!" he snapped. "Look at my sleeve!"

My gaze followed the arm he waved. His sleeve was torn in strips, like garlands hanging from elbow to his wrist. His belt, too, was tattered and clung by a thread, but I didn't mention it. I was struck by the senselessness of his comment. Why did it matter that his shirt was torn when only moments before those terrible creatures had bared their hideous fangs and come near to devouring us?

"I'm sorry!" I said with incredulity.

I dusted the black rot off the riding breeches I'd taken that morning, lifted my head, and saw he was studying me.

"Who are you?"

"Terese of Nouffrey. I work in the kitchens," I lied, taking the name of one of the kitchen maids there.

"You've never worked in a kitchen in your life," he returned. "You haven't a hard-earned muscle on you, else you would have made it up that tree when you tried for it." He pointed to the gnarled oak some distance away, which I had failed to scale before I'd taken to my hiding place on the hill.

"I—It is that I've been ill."

"With what? Black death?" He grunted. "Look at your hands. Not a callous. Smooth as the hind of a calf." He shook his head and pointed his sword at my chest.

I stepped back, but he was too quick. He flicked the blade and caught up the chain at my neck.

"No scullery maid possesses that kind of metal. No, you're not a servant. Someone's taken care to provide for you, someone with means."

I shook my head, terrified. "I don't have anything. Truly! I've—I've been disinherited."

"More lies."

"No!" I cried. "It's truth! What I told you before, about working in the kitchens…well, that was a lie. But I am of Nouffrey, and I've been disinherited by my father's wife, Lady Orinda Folke—I mean, Lady Berendine, Duchess of Istledon."

"An heiress disowned," he mused, "is worth less than one of these." He rolled over the dead beast at his foot and yanked my dagger out of its chest cavity.

My pride smarted under his contempt; but when I peered into the hideous face of the creature, so animal, yet so human, I forgot my indignation. Was this horrible, mangled thing a gobboling? I'd heard that gobbolings still existed in some parts of the land, but I had never imagined such a grotesque being living a day's journey from Nouffrey. Its skin was bloated like moldy, leavened dough. Its human features were grown over with black, thorny protrusions, a clump of them sticking out of the half-opened eye and through the lid.

"Is it true?" I whispered. "A gobboling? Is it—was it really a man?"

"That depends on what you deem a 'man,'" he answered.

"Do they think as we?" I asked. "Do they remember what they were before?"

"I think they do, but it doesn't matter to them." He had finished wiping my dagger and took up the sword beside him, which leaned against the arced root of the tree. "Come," he told me, offering the handle of the dagger to me. When I didn't move, he pushed the gobboling back over on his face.

"Where?" I asked, taking up my only weapon and holding it to my chest anxiously.

From our vantage point on the hill he motioned through the trees. "You'll see where just over the ridge."

My eyes grew wide, and I shook my head. "You're not going farther!" I exclaimed, astonished.

He walked ahead, taking up the satchel I'd dropped a few yards from the tree in my hurried escape. "We must, if we are to reach the keep. We will not be safe from the gobbolings until we cross the channel. They will not cross the water to the island."

"You don't mean the island castle of the Gobboling King?" Suddenly it all began to come together. I was near the residence of the master of these evil beings! I was choked with fear.

He studied me then. "Gobboling King? You fear a myth, lass."

There were only slits in the leather mask for his mouth, but I knew he smiled at what I'd said, and I heard the mockery in his voice.

"But he lives in the castle on the island guarded by…" My words trailed away as I stared back at him. "Is it not so? The gobbolings guard the castle, do they not?"

"There is no castle. I will show you. But quickly. More will come before we reach safety."

I followed him down the steep slope of a hill and over the crest of the next wooded rise. I saw the shadow of the island through the trees. The sun was almost beneath the horizon, and its rays danced hauntingly across the water that surrounded what looked to me to be a tumbled pile of pillars.

"There's your castle," he said at my elbow.

"It isn't ihabitable then."

"Of course it is. Anything is habitable if it's out of reach of the-,"

I saw the flash of movement as something leapt from the rock behind him. He read my face before I could warn him, turned, and swung. The blade sliced across the shoulder of the gobboling, severing the creature's head and lifted arm before its mangled feet hit the forest floor. The torso came down with a squashy thud. Strands of blood splattered across the underbrush. I was already sick in my stomach, but seeing that was too much. I dry heaved, my stomach empty. I hadn't eaten for almost two days.

He took my arm; and if he spoke to me, I didn't hear it. So many things had happened in the past three days, and none of it was real to me yet. I found myself at the water's edge, where sat a worn boat with bare wood so rotted the vessel was black with it. There was hardly room for two passengers; but when he motioned for me to get in, I did. I wrapped my arms around my knees and tried to make myself as small as I could. It wasn't difficult for me, being smaller than average. I've often been mistaken for a child. Even my stepmother had assumed me little more than twelve when we'd first met.

His elbow knocked my shoulder as he rowed us toward the ruins. His back to me, he faced the shore we'd left, rowing swiftly for the island. I craned my neck to survey our destination behind me. The sun to my left was almost down, so I knew we were traveling southward. I glimpsed broken levels of a stone wall. Most of the east side of the structure was an heap. The orange and indigo streaks of sunset across the sky limned the solitary bulwark left standing in the west. Behind it a portion of the castle wall remained.

As we drew near, I saw the outline of a courtyard abutting the lone castle wall. A half dozen archways and their columns were left, some of which were leaning precariously against each other like matchsticks.

We embarked on the bank just as the sun faded out of the sky and left the night to hide us. But the moon, three-quarters of the way full, and bright, gave me light to see the rotting poles of wood above the water's surface, the support for a missing bridge.

We climbed the shattered stone steps to the ruins. It was nearly two hundred steps, I'm certain. I looked across the water, and that's when I saw the flickering lights on the bank on the opposite side. Torches were at the water's edge, forming a line of fire along the shore. More from the forest joined the torchlight at the bank.

"What is that? The gobbolings?" I asked.

"Who do you think?" he returned brusquely.

"You said gobbolings didn't cross the water."

"They don't."

"Then what are they doing?"

"They are taunting me," he said. Even in the moonlight, I saw his bitter smile. "There is something I am looking for, something important to me, and they come each night to remind me I haven't found it."

"What is it?"

"It matters not," he answered. "It is lost to me."

I heard hopelessness in his voice and asked, "Is that why you were in the forest?"

"Yes."

For a moment I was quiet. The breeze of the sea from the southern side of the island blew across my arms, across the goose bumps that had risen. It was not the sight of the multitude of torches that left me cold. A chill ran through me at his words. Why would the gobbolings taunt him? I crossed my arms and rubbed them to keep warm.

"I'm glad you were in the forest," I told him, eager to deny the doubt that swept through me. "I wish you had found what it is you were looking for."

"No you don't," he answered. "Do not attempt to ingratiate yourself when you are afraid. It is cowardly."

I looked at him sharply but could not see his expression, for he quickly walked away. I followed him to the courtyard, stepping over the rubble. My father's boots that I had taken from the stable had rubbed blisters over the tops of my toes. The backs of my ankles were raw and sore, too, though I'd tightened the laces several times to keep them from sliding. As I clomped along the stones, I was more aware than ever of what a sight I was.

He dropped my satchel in the courtyard. "Here you are. The castle of the Gobboling King! Let us tour the chambers." He lifted his hand toward an archway opposite the way we'd come. Behind it was a torn down passage that crumbled in a sprawling line of stones.

"The corridor, which travels the circumference of the grand hall in the center of the magnificent Castle Draill. In the great hall you would have seen the likenesses of fourteen generations, all valiant men of royal blood who upheld the virtue of their ancestors. It is a rubbish heap now.

"And this," he said, motioning to the leaning archway that looked south to sea, "is the way to the baths. You will find a magnificent view of the water, and the heated stone is wonderful for joint pain.

"This goes to the stable, which was closed for lack of horses. That one leads to the gardens and the family chapel, which is in favorable condition, considering the state of the rest.

"The passage that is no longer here," he said, turning to point out the way we had come, "is still being used as the entry hall, though the door and main gate have been missing for some time now."

Exhausted and troubled, I laughed uneasily. His teasing mien in this "tour" seemed meant to divert me.

"And these three doorways correspond with the barracks, the servants' quarters, and the kitchen, respectively. I would advise you not to tour the barracks due to the rain we've been having. The steps are slick, and the tower is in disrepair. The kitchen hasn't any roof, though it works well for storage. The servants' quarters are an ill-advised retreat, since what is left of them is the underground portion and in shambles. You may blame yourself for any misfortune that would most certainly occur to you down there, I warn you."

He turned toward the single, low-walled structure that remained. "The last archway you might wish to circumvent, since its pillars may fall at any moment, but the corridor beyond leads to the queen's hall. It is usable as an overnight accommodation."

With that, he began to climb over the stones next to the matchstick columns. I picked up my sack and followed.

"There is water that still flows into the fountain." My eyes followed as he pointed to a small courtyard just outside the crumbled columns. "I will make you a fire. And afterward I believe I can procure a good deal of duck feathers to make your night's stay somewhat bearable."

There was a fire pit full of gray ash in the center of the hall. My host removed his leather gloves from his hands and dragged a small, rickety stool toward the pit to build a fire. I went to the courtyard and bathed my face. The water dripped from a high rock frosted over with opalescent shells. No water cascaded down the fountain. There was just the persistent drip of water that had pooled in the tarnished basin. The garden was on the bank of a cove. There seemed to be a system in which the salty water drained through the stony levels to drip into the basin.

After I had completed my toilette, I went back to explore the short arm of the room. The floor was covered in small glass tiles of green and gold. The design was of challises and tulips made with dark green stones, encircled by blooms of gold and yellow and decorated with pale fringes of long, narrow pieces of chalcedony. Before the floor broke away entirely, I stepped to the doorway of a narrow room. Inside was clammy. I could see that there had once been a stairway a few feet from the door, but the steps were broken and a large stone had been lodged in the opening above. A glimpse of the light of the moon was visible through a crack not filled by the stone. The silver light hardly entered the room, leaving the closet in shadow.

I returned to the main room, open to the elements, and saw the smoke coming from the fire. My rescuer was gone. I drew near to warm myself and picked up a branch among those stacked beside a wooden stool. I broke the branch in half and knelt, watching as the fire licked it slowly. The fire, still too weak to provide much heat, ate away at the branches. I watched it, waiting for the logs skirting the fire to catch. I shivered in the chill winds coming from the place dubbed "the baths." The thought of lying on the hot stone he'd mentioned made me feel colder. My bones ached with tiredness, and I wished I had never ventured into Draillen Wood. In the stillness, I remembered I was hungry. Yet, I was more fatigued than anything.

I settled on the floor beside the fire and drew the stool to me. It was made of branches tied with twine and vines. The seat was a section of tree truck, which had split and was broken off around the edges. I placed my satchel on it for a pillow to rest my head. Just as I'd drifted off, I heard the stones stir behind me. I lifted my head and saw the man. He no longer wore his mask. I thought his face very pale and drawn for one who had easily thrust through some fifty-odd of those terrible gobboling creatures. His golden hair shined like metal in the reflection of the fire as he crossed the courtyard carrying something large and unshapely. He tossed the sack down away from the fire, and brown, white, and gray down fluttered onto the colorful tiles.

"There. I wish you goodnight," he said and turned abruptly to leave.

"Before you go, I should like to introduce myself and know the name of my deliverer." He stopped but kept his back to me. "I think it unseemly that we should go on without introduction," I explained, feeling uneasy because of his cold manner.

He did not face round, so I stood and met him near the matchstick columns. "I am Esda the daughter of Lord John Berendine, the late Duke of Istledon.

He bowed, and I lifted my hand that he might kiss my fingertips. It was a gesture to which I was accustomed during introductions.

He did not take my hand, though he raised his head and looked hard at the fingers lifted for him to take.

I saw his placid smile by firelight. "I will not kiss your hand, Lady Esda," he said quietly. "If you know anything of the Gobboling King, you know my touch will imprison you here forever."


	2. A Sinking Boat

Chapter 2 – A Sinking Boat

Through the crumbling wall of the queen's hall, I saw the man who called himself the Gobboling King standing on the rocks overlooking the sea. I think he slept there. I entertained a short thought of what the baths there might have looked like once. Was he so old he could recall what the castle had been before my generation, before my father's generation? My father's aged nurse had been the one to tell me my first stories of the Gobboling King and his terrible gobbolings who guarded his morbid island castle.

All this flitted through my mind as I placed my head upon the sack of feathers, and then it was morning. I woke with no residual memory of dreaming. I had been far too tired. I had not slept well for the two weeks my father had been deathly ill. My father the duke had clung to life, and his last hours had been laborious. I'd kept vigil beside him until he flew with the dawn. And then there was no sleep, for there were too many preparations. My stepmother was unacquainted with the ways of Nouffrey. It was my duty to carry out my father's wishes. I saw to the ceremonial dedication of his body, a rite passed down through the generations of the house of Berendine, loyal subjects to the king of Torromaag.

I had promised my father that I would make things comfortable for my new mother. I had hardly known her three months when he took to his bed. It was a hard thing for me. He had always been so sound and hearty to my eyes, but he had grown old quickly. Perhaps he had known his time was approaching.

At first she was very kind. That was, until she learned upon his death that she should inherit nothing of the estate. A substantial living was provided her, but I inherited the whole of Istledon: Nouffrey Castle, the villages, and its wooded regions, known collectively as the Mistlands.

As my new stepmother and I stood by the bier at my father's wake, and, as the flames rose above the pyre and consumed his body, she took my hand. A lump rose to my throat. I had not cried at my father's death or along the march to his tomb. I could not partake in the lamenting of the wailers. Something in me died with him, and I could feel nothing. But when she took my hand, it woke a yearning within me. Yet her hand was not there to comfort me, as I'd wished to believe. Her grip squeezed the thin flesh opposite my palm, where she dug her nails to the very bones. And then tears I had not shed in grief I shed in pain.

"Cry to him," she said to me. "Beg him to rise up and right the wrong he has done me. For if he comes not, you shall beg for bread in a matter of days, daughter."

I feared for myself then. I knew hatred of such a nature would not be appeased. I foresaw I would not remain in the home of my childhood. Yet, I did not understand the depth of her hatred.

I was sent on an errand on the third day after my father's death. I had remained in my chambers for those three days in order, I said, that I might grieve. I contemplated my departure and what I would take. Though they spoke it not to me, the servants knew my situation was dire. My stepmother had become the new mistress despite my father's will. The servants became her eyes, and they told to her my every move.

I expected her to come to me and cast me out. So when her message came, I carried on my person my jewels and the two tokens of most value to me, my pendant on a gold chain, given me by my mother, and my father's dagger with the hilt crafted of gold, four diamonds, four sapphires, and a great ruby in the center. It had been gifted to a lord of Istledon for a high act of valor for the king, though its history had long since been forgotten by anyone but the family. My father inherited both the dagger and the bravery.

I had not that bravery.

My stepmother did not summon me to her chamber. Instead, her chaplain sent for me, entreating me to visit a sick child in the house of the warden of Draillen Wood, part of the Mistlands at the northwestern-most boundary of the duchy. I was told the child had asked to see me and was near to death. While I had visited many households as the daughter of the duke, I had never been requested by a warden of the Mistlands. Immediately, I made preparations, taking with me my father's boots and belt that had been left in the stables before he'd been taken with illness. I also stole the breeches of one of the stable boys. I hid them, though I know now it was known what I had taken. My stepmother sent with me Henry Kechum, a marshal whom my father had kept on after he was unable to ride. The retired Kechum had eaten at my father's table some fifteen years, having an ailment of the bones that bowed his back and gave him continual pain.

When we entered Draillen Forest on our journey to the cottage of Warden Birom, I had no sense of the danger awaiting me. Rather, I journeyed to Draillen with relief for being out of the presence of the woman my father had taken to wife. It was my plan to perform this last duty for his ailing child and disappear.

Considered the wildlands, Draillen was a desolate wood in the extreme northwest corner of the kingdom of Torromaag. It was bordered by the Insal River, a protection from thieves and nomads who might infiltrate my father's lands. The forest was well over half a day's journey from Nouffrey to the east. It was the wildest section of the Mistlands, and one had to travel a day's journey southward to reach the second closest town of Narrowmead. I knew of the Mistlands' many predatory beasts, but I judged I could travel the outskirts of the forest until I reached Narrowmead. Once there, I would decide what to do next. That was the whole of my plan in escaping my stepmother, for I hadn't anyone to confide in, no one to advise the exiled daughter and heir of a wealthy duke.

We did not make it to the warden's lodge, for there was no request made of me by a child of his. Instead, Henry Kechum, upon entering the wood, promptly took the reigns of my horse, bid me descend, and accused me of stealing what was on my person from the Duchess of Nouffrey, namely, my jewels and my ermine and velvet cloak.

"The duchess does not require your father's riding attire, nor the servant's breeches, which you wear under your skirts," he told me, giving me to understand how much was known of my plans by the household. I relinquished the jewels, including my mother's pendant, and the cloak, having thought it a bargain in order to keep my life; for I had reasoned within myself that I might have to bribe Kechum, parting with these very items in order to escape. When he bid me go on my horse, I was surprised at the gift of my own animal.

As I attempted to mount, he circled his horse round and brought the butt of his staff down on the back of my neck. I swooned and caught hold of the sack against the saddle and, yanking the laces open to get at my dagger, I turned the bag upside down. Receiving another blow that struck me fully across the back of the head, I dropped my dagger and fell to the ground. When my vision returned, my horse was gone and Kechum on his steed was galloping toward me. I tried to dodge the animal, but my head was in a fog. I rolled, found the hilt of my sheathed dagger at my knee, drew it swiftly, and stabbed at the horse's pounding hooves as he passed by me. The shoe of Kechum's horse caught only the flesh on the underside of my arm. Fortunately, I'd caught the tendon of his right foreleg with my blade and crippled him. The horse fell forward, and Kechum was flung over his horse to the ground.

I did not flee Kechum, as he lay where he'd fallen. I ran to him, my dagger extended.

"What in the name of the king has bewitched you, Kechum? I must put an end to you for your treason if you do not explain yourself!" As incredible as it may seem, I was still in doubt that my father's loyal servant and friend had meant to harm me.

Kechum, who could barely turn his head, replied, "Milady, I entreat you do it. For your cause is just, and I am lower than the dust I sit so ill upon."

Then Kechum explained to me how the new duchess had threatened to have him tried as a thief for stealing from the duke's bounty for so many years. I pitied him, for he could not have born prison in so weakened a state.

"Kill me, my true duchess. Put an end to me before she finds that I have betrayed her, for I couldn't do it. I was told to return with your head packed in the basket you were to carry to the warden's lodge and leave no article of Nouffrey upon you."

He pleaded with me to take my gown and jewels back, kill him, and flee. I took back my treasured pendant; but I could not kill him, nor leave him in such a state. There we stayed until the dark wood grew ever darker. His horse had fallen to the earth and taken up a lament. Henry participated in his own lament from time to time, the bones in his back being shattered from the fall. I made use of my father's boots, which had fallen from the open sack of my horse as she'd bolted. I made two searches for my horse, returning to Kechum after each excursion. I was fearful of venturing too far into the wood alone. The deeper I went, the darker my way became. But as night came upon us, I took up my dagger, determined I would not come back without my spooked mare. I had gone only a few yards from Kechum when I heard him cry out in a terror, followed by the silence of the dead. The unearthly noises of chewing and tearing that followed set my heart to galloping and my feet to flying. I knew I would soon be prey to something wild and terrible if I did not move.

I ran for a time, but my body was already taxed from sleeplessness and fasting. The woods grew quiet when I stopped and surveyed all around me. A noise alerted me to the nearness of my predators, and I tried to scale a great tree there. I glimpsed the gobbolings for the first time then and climbed up the hill, losing my dagger in the flight for refuge. They appeared out of the shadows of the trees and gathered around the hill. The raspy, throaty gasps of their breathing filled the air. I screamed, dropped my dagger and the sack of Kechum's provisions he had pushed upon me for the journey, and dove under the roots, burying myself in the mulch of the dying tree.

I never saw from which direction he came. I never comprehended how he attained the hill before the gobbolings, but there he was, smashing and dashing his sword through the lot of them. He must have found my dagger, for he hurtled it into the chest of the gobboling that came for me. And then it was over. All that remained was a ghastly graveyard of the brutes and the man who'd saved my life.

All of this I considered when I opened my eyes to the morning sunlight as I lay on the colorful tiles of the desolate queen's hall and recalled where I was. Something rustled above the leaning columns. I turned my head and glimpsed a wing of a great, dark bird, which took flight. The sight of it and its close proximity sent shivers through me: a carrion bird hovering and watching me in broad daylight. I stood and scanned the rocks where, the night before, I had seen the man who called himself the Gobboling King. He was not there.

My fire was a thin line of flames that ran a corner of the pit. It had taken all but the largest branches at the edges, and now it was weak and smothered by the mounds of ash. There were a few nuts and berries scattered on the tiles before the fire. I ate the berries eagerly, cracked open the nuts to get at their meat, and hungered still. I washed at the courtyard fountain and went the way of the baths. I stood on the promontory of the great stone, warmed by the sun, and looked out to sea. The water was a vast pallet of ever-changing blues, its bejeweled ripples sparkling in the sunlight.

Everything looked brighter, and I did not feel so weighted with the grief of my lost father and home. It seemed to me that, perhaps, if I journeyed back to Nouffrey that day, I should find my father, fit and looking for me—that even my stepmother would welcome me back and take me to her chamber to sit and speak of the things only a mother and daughter may say to one another. But as I turned away from the soothing motion of the water and cast my eyes to the land, I knew the truth.

Still, my head was so full of determination that I should think the best that I began to doubt the words my host had uttered before he'd left me to rest in the hall. Why had he said he was the Gobboling King? To tease me? I ruminated on this possibility for longer than I should have. I told myself that he might have answered the bestowal of my hand in such a way because he perceived me a child and the gesture to be a conceited affectation. It was often the case that I was mistaken as being a young girl. I had no figure of which to speak. I was thin and small-framed. My bones stuck out at my wrists and ankles, as though I were on the brink of womanhood, when, in fact, I had reached my seventeenth year some months back.

I finally determined that it did not matter to me whether he had said it in jest or in truth. He was not there. And as I did not intend to stay in those ruins another night, his absence concerned me only in taking from me my means of escape: the boat. Had he left the island? I made my way over the stones and ran to the water's edge. My apprehension vanished; the boat waited there.

I drew the vessel against the earth and stepped in, realizing immediately I'd left Kechum's sack—my provisions—in the queen's hall. I determined not to go back and, taking up the oar, I cut the rope with my dagger and pushed off from land. I rowed out to the center of the lake swiftly. The current was gentle and did not hamper my progress.

It was when I reached the midpoint that the boat began to fill. It drew in water quickly, like the bottom was a sieve. My legs and waist were seized by coldness; and I screamed at the painful, icy chill that enclosed me, dropping the oar into the water where it disappeared. My legs throbbed momentarily, and then they went numb. The boat sunk evenly, the edges barely visible beneath the water. It did not capsize or turn on one end, like any normal leaky boat. I sat submerged until the water was up to my neck. I tried to push out of the boat and swim for shore. I was weighted down by numbness and could not budge. I thought of my boots, so heavy, and fumbled to draw out my father's dagger to cut the laces, my arms cramping under the water. I gripped the hilt for all my life and lifted my arms out of the lake, for the feeling came back when they left the water. But I could not draw up my knees. My legs would only move sluggishly. The current swirled round me, and I felt something knock against my leg.

This sent me into action, though I could only push against the water futilely. Each time my arms touched the icy stream they burned and lost feeling, so that I feared I would lose the dagger.

I could not believe my eyes, when, some distance away, a head emerged from the water and a woman's voice greeted me.

"Welcome!"

I made no response, for I was out of breath.

Another figure bobbed in the water to my left.

"Come play with us!" cried the second.

This invitation was very strange indeed. Not only was I on the verge of drowning, but the lake and the woods surrounding held an unnatural hush. The whole of it unhinged me, so that I cried out when the third playfellow surfaced only feet away. The water dripped from her pale face—for she looked the woman. Her head alone was visible, the waterline at her chin. Her hair hung flaxen along her jaw as she smiled and blinked, the water collecting on her nearly-transparent lashes. When she looked at me, I thought something about her eyes strange, but I was soon distracted from examining them. Something bumped against my leg. I kicked upward, my dagger still raised in my hand, and I cried out again.

"Come play!" the third entreated.

"Yes, play!" they cried, as though they had no comprehension of my terror.

Just as I became aware that the water was fomenting around me like something living, the great shadow of the black bird bore down on me. I brandished my dagger, and, as I thrust aimlessly at the carrion bird, another head emerged from the water at my side followed by a long, scaly blue neck. Petrified at the sight, I did not move. If it hadn't been for the bird that drove its talons into the cheek of the face, I don't know what would have happened to me. Shrieks went up around me. I thought at first they were screeches of birds come to attack before I realized they were cries of pain from the water. The bird still had its talons buried in the face so near to me, and it seemed that all the heads experienced the pain of the one. The black bird's outstretched wing flapped against my arm as it held on to the thrashing creature by its face. For a brief moment, I considered using my dagger, but I did not know which to stab, the bird or the reptilian head-thing, and my reaction was stilled by the rumbling water. The water rolled and moved, and the bird escaped to the air and circled. To my horror a giant, scaly, serpentine form surfaced and disappeared unto the waves in front of me. I gasped, choked on the heaving water, and tried to swim away. More water people rose up between me and the castle (for that was the way I had turned in my panic). They moved fluidly through the water, and I saw their snaky, scaly blue necks and backs rise up before they dove under. A chant went up, a vicious murmur they spoke to one another, just as a head surfaced beside me, its rough coils circling my body.

"We want to play," it said in a gravely tone that told me the truth of its cruel meaning.

Suddenly, sharp claws dug into both my shoulders and pulled me bodily out of the water. I knew before I looked up that it was the great black bird drawing me out of the sea. I hung limply, for the pinch to my shoulders took away the feelings in my arms, and the rest of my body was too numb from the water to react.

The sea creature tightened its coils round my knees and drew me back down.

Quiet Mindreader: Hi! You can congratulate yourself—or blame yourself!—for this story's appearance. I couldn't resist your request! I hope the question of what the gobbolings would do if they caught her has been answered (see Kechum's demise above). Okay, so, when I'm writing this story, Esda has a British accent; and she pronounces it, "goh-buh-ling." The stress is on the "go." Interesting that you should ask about that. I plan to post on Thursday nights. And thanks for inspiring me to come back!

Guest: I couldn't ask for a nicer review! It makes me feel like I've really grown in my craft. Thanks!

Arista Everett June: Hello, beloved. Yes, there's a mixture of Beauty and the Beast and Snow White. I never tire of the B&amp;B archetype. And if you are hinting that I can beta read something you're writing, send it on!


	3. Poison Berries

Chapter 3 – Poison Berries

Lifted bodily from the water, I felt my right shoulder give way under the bird's talons, tearing the skin as I was pulled downward by the sea creature. The release of my arm freed the movement of my right hand, and I thrust my blade into the serpent's coil. I could not have punctured it deeply, for I was choking on a lung-full of water. The creature retracted, whiplike, and a wail went up. Many heads rose and cried simultaneously before they retreated into the sea, which roiled and quaked. The water foamed and broke upon the banks of the island before the tumultuous currents stilled.

The massive bird above me, his talons digging into the muscle of my left shoulder, drove me toward the forest shore. I did not fight. Little thought passed through my mind but to stay afloat in the icy water. I gripped my knife above the water's surface and steeled myself for the fight once we reached the shore. I believed I'd been the object of battle between two creatures who thought me their prey. Though I preferred to take on the black bird, I was in no condition to fend off any adversary for long.

My hands found the bank, and the bird drew its talon out of my shoulder. I crawled onto the shore, and with dagger in hand I alternated between flourishing it threateningly and nursing my gouged shoulder. The bird flew from me and perched on a branch of a tree above. I tried to move, but my legs and chest ached to the very bone with coldness. I lay there gasping for some time. I kept my eyes on the black-winged creature until I began to fade off into slumber. The terrible exertion in the sea had left me utterly spent. Minutes later, the bird swooped down and knocked my head with its sharp beak.

I sat up with more energy and tried to defend myself for the next attack. My torn right shoulder burned with pain. I could barely raise the left.

The bird sat prettily on its bough and watched me. Not a sound did it make. It did not screech or cry at all, even during the battle with the sea serpent. It merely glared. I interpreted the message then: I was to move. This was my desire as well. If only I could.

I tried to stand; and after a good many minutes in which my head spun and shoulder ached, I took my first steps. I ventured into the forest, dreading the effort it would take me to escape before the sun went down. As I walked, I realized nothing was familiar to me. The inner forest was gloomy, and there was little, if nothing, to distinguish one hill or tree from another. But I was determined to find my way. The bird followed, hovering like the vulture I still distrusted it to be. It lighted on a bough ahead and waited. Once, when I turned away to walk in a false direction, it swooped down on me. I tripped in my rush to escape its attack and rolled unto my left shoulder, which was unable to handle the weight. It felt as though my entire arm had come detached. I struggled to my knees, my left arm limp at my side, and glared at the creature. It returned my stare and looked away. Even then I did not comprehend it faced the direction in which I should go. That simple intelligence did not enter my head until the second time it swooped down upon me to stop me in my path. It landed on a rock and turned its face away from me, looking in the direction it wanted me to take.

I followed out of weariness rather than obedience. It was only when we came to the hill where the solitary gobboling had tried to ambush my rescuer the day before that I began to grow hopeful. My pace quickened; I pushed myself to trudge uphill, knowing I must hurry, or I would be in the same predicament as the night before. I did not consider that nothing remained of the gobboling until we reached the clearing with the rotting tree. Scattered large stones covered the hill, and I saw a stone overlapping the root of the tree. It was in the same position and was the same shape as the gobboling out of which my rescuer had drawn my blade. I looked at each gobboling stone as I stumbled along. The color of the rock was a mixture of dull shades, neither black, nor brown, nor white. I noticed a faint trace of moss had already begun to grow along the side of one as I stepped over it.

I had not gone far when a blur of white appeared between the trees. A snowy bear lumbered toward me. It seemed unreal, not only because of its color but the indistinct haze about it. As I backed away, the bird seemed to go mad, flapping wildly in the face of the bear. The ghostly bear raised itself on its hind legs and roared at me. I retreated, trying my best to flee. Fortunately, it did not give chase; and when I looked back, I saw the strangest scene.

The black bird was on the ground facing the white bear, which, on all fours, had its nose so close it almost touched the top of the bird's head. It was the most docile and loving gesture I had ever seen between two wild creatures. I questioned whether they were both enchanted.

The bear began to back away, and the bird took flight through the trees. He swooped toward me and landed, his beak pointing in the direction from which I had just come. The white bear was gone, and I perceived the bird had won some silent argument. Contemplating this, I let him lead me and saw nothing more of the bear.

Eager to make my way to the boundary of the forest before nightfall, I did not look where I was going and stepped into a hole some animal had made. I might have been able to carry on with a twist, but the icy water had left my limbs brittle. I felt my ankle snap like a twig. I dragged myself to the trunk of a tree with my right arm, wishing for the numbness I had experienced in the water, a numbness that might have masked some of the pain. Unlike the heavy feeling in my left shoulder and the ache in my right, this was a piercing jolt. I was in agony. Being unused to roughness of any sort, I wanted to scream with every splitting jab, but I was wary as to who or what might hear me.

The pain would not relent. I dug my nails into the ground and grabbed at roots to keep from crying out. I sobbed quietly, biting my lips and gasping.

The black bird flew away then. As unreasonable as it sounds, I was angry with the enchanted creature for deserting me. I had little hope of a second rescue. I attempted to move, to perform some type of crawl so that I might continue, but it was impossible. I simply could not go on. The darkness would come, and the gobbolings would finish me. I should have been terrified at the thought, but my ankle was in such a state I could hardly consider what would happen when night fell.

I must have been unconscious, for I raised my eyes some time later to the heavy wing flap of the big bird returning. It landed on the branch above me and dropped something onto my head that rolled to my lap. It was a wet-looking, star-like yellow berry. I suppose there were a few of these tiny berries in his beak because he began to pelt the crown of my head with them. When he was finished, he waited, hovering over me in his customary vulture-like manner.

Since I was convinced the bird was under some sort of spell, I looked down at the scattered yellow berries and thought the worst. Yellow was a poisonous color for berries. I had eaten at many fine tables and tasted many dainties, but this peculiar-looking berry had never been introduced.

You may think me a tremendous coward—I have admitted as much already—but I ate one of the berries thinking to put myself out of my misery. It was the worst thing I've ever placed upon my tongue. It tasted like cinders with a woodsy bitterness. There were spiky pieces on its skin that attached to my tongue as I tried to swallow. If the bird had not been well above me during the eating of this first berry, I would have thrown the rest at him. As it was, I merely spit out stickles and swiped the remaining berries from my lap.

Moments later my breath began to come fast and my vision blurred. I thought to myself, _This is it. The poison is working._ And it _was_ working. I lost feeling in my toes, then one whole foot. Unfortunately, it was the wrong foot. Still, I realized that the pain in my ankle was almost entirely gone. I knew it had to be the yellow berry. Nothing else could have effectuated such a quick change.

My fingers were clumsy as I tried to peel the moist, stickle-skin off the second one. The taste of cinders wasn't any pleasanter with the dirt from my fingers added to it. I swallowed and waited. After my fourth or fifth berry, my vision swimming, I felt wonderful. I reached for another berry and something tapped my hand. I continued to roll the berry under my finger when another fuzzy tap came. I turned to look at what it was and found I was staring at the bird.

I laughed. It was tremendously funny to me that I had not seen the bird approach. I tried to thank it for the incredibly nice berries and started to pat its plumage, when I realized my hand was red with blood. I knocked my bloodied hand against the bird and told it to stop gouging my hand, and to look what it had done. I pretended to nurse my hand, but really I was looking around me for another berry because they were suddenly all gone! Just as I'd given up, sorrowful that I'd eaten them all so quickly, I noticed a speck of yellow just under the bird's claw as it perched on the ground beside me.

"Why you sly vulture!" I exclaimed. You have stolen my berry!" I pushed at it vainly, and stumbled forward on my arms. (I could hardly feel them.) My weight made the creature hop back, and there, to my amazement was a stash of the missing berries. "You—you…!" Before I could call it any more names, it jabbed its beak into my hand again. I gave my hand a good look. The skin was missing in a great many places, and I couldn't understand why I hadn't really felt it at all. My hand served as a distraction for the bird, who dug at the remaining berries with its claw, crushing and scattering them. It used the dirt to bury them well, while I cried and stared, quite muddled in the head.

It flew away then, and I searched the turned up dirt pathetically until I found a piece of a berry. I crowed up at the bird, as it hovered above my head, "Ha! See that! I have some left, and I will eat it. So there!"

And I did eat it, though it was more dirt than berry. Shortly thereafter, I fell over and slept.

~0~

I swayed on a stone raft in the great big sea. The raft was too small for me; and it wasn't flat, but lumpy. The water swelled this way and that. I held onto the raft, which sometimes I thought was upside-down—or I was upside-down. As waves launched themselves at my stone raft, I would hear a strange single beat of thunder. Then the lightening would flash. The thunder was coming from somewhere under my lumpy raft. Another wave came toward me. The lightning flashed, and the thunder pounded. Then there was a horrible cry, and I opened my eyes as my body was swung round, away from something upside-down running toward me. As I slid off my raft, an arm tightened around my hips, catching me. The silver flash of lightning sliced through the attacker. Then I knew I was propped over someone's shoulder, while the head of a gobboling flew sidewise and became lodged between two small trees. The one carrying me started to run. I pushed up on his back and tried to look at the world aright.

"Keep down," he told me. He raced forward, and I could see two gobbolings running toward us from opposite directions. Something flew over the both of us, and, as we ran by, I saw the ax, its blade chucked into a tree trunk.

"Keep down, I tell you!" he shouted, and I tried to do so. My body felt like lead. I was sure I was going to slip off his back because of the way he held me. He made a sharp turn, and I saw the island from underneath his elbow. Then he did drop me. I screamed as I went toppling to the ground. He stepped right over me, and I heard the snicker-snack of metal upon metal.

"Aahhh!" the Gobboling King roared in pain. They were both upon him. One gobboling beat his club against his back, while the other jabbed an iron rod at his head! The Gobboling King hunched over, and they came for me. One grabbed my broken ankle, and I yelled as it dragged me away; but I unsheathed my dagger and plunged it between its eyes. The gobboling turned white and shivered into a mound of ash. The Gobboling King had taken hold of the leg of the second and flung him mightily against a tree, where it slid to the ground, dead or near to dying.

My rescuer turned about, looking for the other gobboling. He had not seen what had resulted from the use of my dagger, and I was too speechless and muddled to tell him. I clutched my weapon as he took me up again, tossing me over his back as though he might fling _me_ against some tree, as well. On he ran to the water's edge.

In the light of the waning sun, I saw a rotting boat sitting at the shore. It looked exactly like the sinking boat I had taken from the castle that morning. I looked at it in astonishment, thinking, _How many of these paltry boats can there be?_ He put me down, still eying the bank for gobbolings, and told me, "In. Quickly."

"It is rotted through." I told him, sheathing my dagger. "It will sink."

"It won't sink. It knows its master."

If this was meant to persuade me, it missed its mark. I didn't budge. An arrow whizzed by my head and sunk into the splintered side of the vessel.

"Get in!" he ground out; and before I could do anything, his gloved hands hoisted me into the boat and he was almost on top of me. Another arrow shot into the water beside us, and he was rowing.

I was terrified of being in that vessel again, of being taken by the horrible creatures I'd seen in the water. I clung to him, my fingers trying to find purchase in the rough leather tunic he wore, which protected me from his touch. A tattered strip of his shirt sleeve dangled from the joint at his underarm.

I looked into his masked face, afraid yet awed. The leather mask was torn across his forehead. I could see the wound at the side of his head, the wet blood clumped darkly in his pale hair. He did not speak. All his energies were used for rowing. The gobbolings had begun to circle the shore, their torches aglow. The Gobboling King's dark eyes glittered in the flames that reflected off the water. His leather-bound chin extended over my shoulder as he leaned forward, urging the boat onward. He should have had his back to me, but he rowed in a backward motion instead, his back shielding me from arrows.

The boat held up as we reached the midpoint between the island and the shore, and I finally spoke. "I apologize. I didn't mean to—,"

"If you had looked where you were going, you would've made it before nightfall," he snapped, gritting his teeth as he rowed.

At first, I thought he'd seen me break my ankle, and then I realized he must have found me and deduced what had happened.

_I regret it more than you,_ I wanted to say. But I kept silent. I'd caused him a great deal of trouble.

"Are you very hurt?" I asked as we neared the remains of the bridge and his effort slackened.

"It matters not," he answered shortly. "Wounds do not last with me, as they do with you."

"Then why protect yourself with such as these?" I asked, gesturing to his leather mask.

"It is not for my protection." My eyes caught the dazzle of the torches at the bank, as he explained, "My touch looses the evil and binds the good."

I released his tunic. _A fitting_ _ability_ _for a gobboling king,_ I thought. _I should cover my own hands and face, as well._

* * *

A/N: The heroine of this story is named Esda, not Elsa. If you've read my suggestions for driving online writers crazy in the last chapter of "The Review Addiction" (see my Fictionpress account, same penname), then you know why I'm dying laughing about the name contortion!

Guest: I'm glad you gave it a try. The cover of this book is nonexistent! Hopefully, I'll come up with an image soon. The answer to your question is, "Yes. Definitely, yes."

M: Hello again! I'll try to keep the roof from caving on Esda. She's had enough trouble. :)

Paper Castles: "Shined" changed to "shone." Thank you! I'll be reading your Peter Pan story!

seelieprincess: I looked up "inhabitable." It has the same meaning as "habitable." Its original meaning has probably been lost, like regardless/irregardless. I changed it to "habitable" for your peace of mind, and mine! Thanks so much!


	4. Mending

Chapter 4 – Mending

There could be no question that I was the guest who had overstayed her welcome. He carried me to the roofless queen's hall, built a fire impatiently, and with a curt, "Goodnight," he left me. Not that I desired his company, but I did feel to blame.

I'd noticed when the gobboling had grabbed my broken ankle that something was wrapped around it, and my ankle was somewhat stiff. It was a wet leaf of some sort. The leaf was wide and flat and kept there by a twisted strip of torn cloth. I assumed it was a strip of my rescuer's sleeve by the feel of it. I untied this gingerly and peeled away the leaf to see that the bone was no longer protruding out of the gash in my ankle. Two small pieces of wood were tied at both sides of my ankle with another strip of the material, stained with my blood. I wrapped it with the leaf again and tried to rest, but I was ravenous. I found Kechum's sack and hunted through it, hoping for a morsel. I was surprised to find a hard piece of bread and a stale lamb pasty. I ate them both.

I lay down to sleep and dozed off only to fits of wakefulness throughout the night. My ankle ached more and more as the night wore on. The numbing effect of the berries was completely gone by early morning.

The sky was still black with only a whisper of dawn when I tried to stand, leaning against the stool for support. My fire was out, and I was cold. Through the broken wall of the hall I could see the silhouette of the Gobboling King upon the warming rock by the sea. He stood and removed his shirt, pulling it over his head. I did not gather that he was undressing until afterward. For, as he slipped off the garment in the somber gray, he seemed to spring into the air and become a part of the grayness of the predawn hour. I saw the great wings catch hold of the winds of the sea, and the black bird was borne aloft, lifting itself to the misty sky.

I had seen nothing but the figure of a man change to the flight of a bird. I thought I had dreamt it. All night I had been restless, after all, and I was groggy from the potency of the berries. The sun had risen, and I knew sleep was over for me. My ankle was in no shape to put weight upon it, so I sidled over to Kechum's leather bag and went through it again to be certain I had not missed some other means of sustenance. I had not. The only items left in the satchel were two horseshoe nails and hammer, a white burial facecloth, and a smooth stone bearing a Latin inscription. I knew this stone was Kechum's, and he used it when he prayed. I imagine the burial cloth had been to cover my dismembered head. Knowing that Kechum had prepared these items for my murder did not move me as much as it might have if I had not been through so much the day before. Sleeplessness and tremendous pain have a tendency to turn a person's mind to the morbid. It seemed to me I had not been saved from death, but, rather, my death was being prolonged. I was not hopeful of escaping. I did not doubt the spells involved to have put me in such a remote and devastated place. Whether they were spells that affected me directly had no bearing on my plight. I was in the midst of them, and therefore would suffer from them.

The great black bird came about midday and landed on the crumbling wall nearby. It dropped the carcass of a rabbit. I stared at the lump of fur on the broken tile.

The bird flew to the courtyard and returned to me with a large shell of water from the shells that lay around the fountain. It landed so close to my head that I raised my hand in defense. But it only set the shell down on the tile, winged away, and settled on the crumbling wall again. I quenched my thirst gratefully, for I had been longing for a drink for many hours. I had ventured toward the courtyard once that morning, a torturous and fruitless expedition. My left arm had grown stiffer; and now it was practically immovable, though there was still some feeling in my left hand and wrist.

I spoke to the bird then. It seemed natural to talk to this creature, though I couldn't say why but to remind you of the intelligence the bird persisted in revealing. The vision I had seen that morning had not so great an impact. I'd dismissed it, considering it the result of the unclear moment of waking.

"I haven't the slightest clue how to dress a rabbit. And, besides, the fire's gone out."

The bird made no response, of course. It flew away, and I was left there with a cold pit beside me and a dead hare next to the wall. I felt my helplessness. My rosy life at Nouffrey had tumbled round me over the past weeks, and now I was reminded how little I knew in order to provide for myself. At the castle, the fires were never left to go out during winter and, oftentimes, were lit year round in the living quarters. The only food I'd ever worked to eat consisted of nuts and fruits and meats in shells. I began to bemoan the uncommon mode of living I had enjoyed.

Hours later, I know not how many, the bird returned carrying a yellowed husk, which my feathered host dropped on the other side of the pit. The contents wrapped in the husk spilled out: some nuts and a small root were stuffed into the casing of the ear of corn. Dragging myself with my right arm over to the food, I ate, peeling the parched corn from the husk and cracking the nuts by knocking them against the tiles. The root was a half-grown parsnip. Its flesh was tough but filling.

The bird perched on the wall in the same place and watched me. After I had finished the food, I felt tired and lay down upon the tiles again. Quickly, the bird landed near me, rapped my scabbed hand with its hard beak, and flew away. I sat up with a cry of pain and watched it wing itself into the air.

You may wonder why I never thought to look for the Gobboling King. I might wonder at it myself. I took it that he was away. The ruins were so bare and open to me that I would have heard the least sound—a footstep, a whistle, a spoken word. There was no sign of another person all the day. As the sun began to go down, my first concern was the gobbolings, not my rescuer. I watched the shore, though I couldn't see much of it from the queen's quarters.

The sun's light had not fully vanished from the sky when he stepped into the hall from the shadows. He wore no tunic over his torn shirt, the sleeve missing half its material from elbow to wrist. Without a word, he approached the fire pit, cleared away the ash, and started the fire using a piece of flint. He worked at it for sometime, building it up to a roaring blaze. He brought more logs from a pile outside the wall and placed them beside the fire. Then he went to the wall and took up the rabbit. (I assumed he'd seen it while making up the fire.) He skinned it and threw the fur and entrails into the flames. He broke one of the sticks to a point and thrust it through the rabbit. Then he made a frame of some of the wood and placed the skewered meat over the flames.

He slid on his gloves and stepped around the pit, asking, "Can you move away from the fire? Your face is flushed."

I had attempted to move, but the effort was trying. I was very tired, and the pain all the day had taken my energy.

"May I?" he asked, as he bent down to pick me up. I thought it odd that he asked my permission; he had handled me like a sack of potatoes a number of times already. When I nodded my assent, he settled me away from the fire upon the tiles and set two logs under my leg to examine my ankle.

Even the unwrapping was painful. The leg had been throbbing all the afternoon.

"Do you feel this?" he asked, a leather finger pressing the top of my foot.

It was a puffy, sore sensation. "Yes. It is swollen."

With a dour look he placed my leg back on the tiles and went back to tend the meat.

"I'm not learned in the skill of skinning a rabbit," I told him, wishing I were less helpless.

After a time he answered, "Then you must learn."

I tried to sit up on my side, giving a small laugh. "Shall I have time, do you think?"

He nodded toward my ankle. "You will have a matter of weeks by the look of that."

This was a realization I had not considered. The healing of an ankle bone at home might have taken as long, but the wait would not have seemed as unendurable as spending the days as I had spent that one.

I sighed forlornly. I wished I had not when he looked at me sharply.

"I'm terribly sorry to have inconvenienced you in this way," I said quickly; for I was sorry, though I felt worse for my own situation. "I wish there were something I could do to—"

"I intend to see you do a few things while you are here," he interrupted. "One is the mending of this shirt."

To my astonishment he promptly began to remove the article. I looked away, as any lady should. The material landed beside me. "You know how to sew, do you not? Most daughters learn to do that."

His tone was mocking, reminding me that my accomplishments up to that point were nothing to boast of.

"I can sew," I began, "but mending… Well, I can certainly try." I pursued my lips, determined to be useful, only I kept my eyes averted from his bare chest.

He picked up the meat on the stick. I heard him draw the air in swiftly through his teeth, and I realized he had checked whether it was done and burned his fingers.

"Here," he said, setting the skewer beside me. I took it up without raising my eyes to him. I was extremely uncomfortable being so near him when he wore no shirt and gloves, the former for reasons of modesty and the latter fearing his touch.

"Thank you," I told him, my eyes cast downward.

"Indeed," he said.

I thought his tone held a semblance of indignation, though I didn't know why my gratitude might ruffle him. I surmised it was because I wouldn't look at him and explained, "I must acknowledge it isn't proper for us to converse while you are disrobed."

"Isn't proper for whom?" he asked.

I was at a loss that the situation didn't seem to trouble him. "I—I suppose," I stammered, "for me."

He paused for a time before stating, "Very well."

He got up and walked out of the hall. It had not occurred to me that he might leave for good. He was prone to leave and return with no thought of excusing himself. I assumed he'd left me that he might don another shirt. But he did not return. I waited, but he did not appear again for the rest of the night, nor all of the next day.

It was that night that I first heard the singing. It was only a faint sound, but it troubled me. My heart beat quickly, and I felt that I would go mad if I didn't find the source of that hauntingly woeful melody! I tried to get up once, but I could not do it. As the singing continued through the night, it grew more beautiful to my ears. I cried and ached to go to it. Before the morning it finally stopped, and I slept.

When I woke again, the sun had been baking me for some hours. I found three of the shells of water near my head and drank them all. Then I spread the shirt out on the tiles of the floor and examined the torn garment. The material was worn and thin. The edges were frayed. It was my first thought to tell its owner that it would be better to give up on the shirt. But he was not present, and I had the impression from his complaints upon our first meeting that the shirt was of some importance. I had very little faith I could mend the sleeve, especially when torn strips from it were stained with blood and tied around my ankle.

At midday, the black bird came to me. I eyed him with a small smile on my face, thinking I should like to know what he carried for me today. He perched on the crumbled wall, but he did not stay there long. Instead, he flew down to the stool and dropped something on it. It looked like a ball of fluff, until I scrutinized it. It was gray thread, its strands glinting in the sun's light. It must have been combed and smoothed before the bird had taken hold of it.

I reached toward the stool. I had to used my right arm and drag my aching ankle to gain it. It was very painful. When I grabbed up the ball of fuzzy, soft thread, something sharp pierced my palm and stuck there. I drew it out of my skin, knowing what it was. The rugged point of the wooden needle had a small hole in its other end for the thread. I dabbed the blood off the tapered edge and went to work smoothing the thread.

It was no easy task to sew the shirt. I could not lean on my shoulders for any length of time. I had only the stool to lean against, and it was not able to bear my weight without slipping over the tiles. I placed it atop my pillow of feathers and tried all sorts of uncomfortable positions in order to sit. My left hand was little more than a prop; my fingers would not squeeze or pinch. As I worked, I began to see my stitches were loose and uneven. I had difficulty keeping the thread from slipping out of the rudely-made needle. My needles at home were well-shaped and made of ivory so that I might thread pieces of silk through lacework or quality velvet. Matching two widths of thin, frayed material to form one length along the sleeve was a skill I sadly lacked. The first two strips I attached were puckered and they did not end evenly at the cuff. Somehow I had more material left on one side than the other, which formed an unseemly lump. I wanted to take it out and try again, but the material was too thin. So I let it be and began to attach the outer strip that had been on my ankle. The work was tiring, and I looked out for the black bird. Twice I saw him glide over the ruins high above, but that was all. He brought no food—no animals that I hoped the Gobboling King would skewer and cook over the fire that evening, should he return.

After the second tragic-looking seam, I gave up on piecing the sleeve and worked to close up any gaps. The result looked ridiculous. The stitches were crude and pulled in uneven gathers. I set the shirt down and never picked it up for the rest of the day. Soon I went to sleep and dreamed a black shadow crouched over me.

I woke just before nightfall. My entire leg was sore. I had been holding it stiffly because of the pain. I looked down at it to find something yellow and watery was covering my ankle. The leaf that had been wrapped around it previously was on the floor some feet away. The only clue I had as to how my ankle had come to be bothered was a single, black bird's feather near my foot, which I knew had not been there before.

As the darkness moved over the sky, I saw the great bird descend carrying a parcel I would have thought too big for him, only I knew too well his incredible strength. He did not land on the wall, but landed at a distance—I assume upon the rock overlooking the sea. Moments later, the Gobboling King, shirtless still, stepped through the hole in the wall carrying the pouch.

He picked up the garment at my side, and suddenly, I felt truly embarrassed at the pathetic repair I had made. One gap I had sewn was missing the thin, bloodied piece wrapped around my ankle. The sleeve hung oddly. He eyed it only momentarily. I felt his displeasure, though he said not a word. He merely dropped the pouch next to the fire pit, took off his gloves, and pulled the shirt on over his head. The stitched sleeve was tight and irregular along his forearm, a contrast to the billowy sleeve opposite. Gray thread still dangled from the cuff.

He knelt and began to build up the fire.

"I would not have asked you to touch my shirt had I known what you would make of it," he said, his dark eyes flinty by firelight.

"I am sorry," I told him. "I have never attempted such a task before."

"Indeed," he remarked. It was a word that grated upon my ears, for he seemed to say it each time he was displeased with something I said or did.

"You have no other shirt," I said. "That is why you left last night." I paused and added, "Again, I am sorry for my ingratitude for your kindness. I should not have been so rude."

He continued to stare at the fire until he straightened, pulled on his gloves again, and walked over to kneel at my side. "Your ankle is no better," he said, when he moved my ankle and I flinched. "You must bathe it at the pool by the rocks every day. Then we shall know whether it will heal."

He went into the garden, returning with water in two of the shells. "I have not given you enough to drink, but once you are closer to the water, you will have a small spring to drink from during the day."

"The bird brought me water," I explained. "The black bird. He is very intelligent. I think he must be spellbound."

"Yes, he is." He picked up the black feather near my ankle, adding, "He is most spellbound." He held my gaze and did not say more. He did not need to. At once I understood that he was the bird!

* * *

A/N: I appreciate each reviewer's encouraging comments! I will try to limit my responses to questions about the story.

M: Oh dear. It was a continuation. Where did I lose you? Can you tell me the point(s) where you became confused? There are sure to be other readers who are confused, too! Thanks for that important feedback.

Quiet Mindreader: Your guesses were correct! Yes, the Gobboling King used Esda's dagger, drawing it out of the gobboling in chapter 1. I've updated the flashback in chapter 2 to show this. Thank you for noticing that info was missing! Yes, the boat is enchanted. I think future chapters should answer your other questions. :)


	5. Cylla

Chapter 5 – Cylla

I couldn't speak it. I was dumbfounded by the knowledge that the Gobboling King of the night was the dark bird of the day that had guided me and fed me. I was ashamed I'd not realized it before! For, hadn't I seen him change from man to bird with my own eyes?

He turned away and opened the pouch. It was made of rough hide and looked very heavy. I was even more amazed to see the three small birds he pulled out of the bag.

"The hunt was fair today," he admitted. "I caught the last one just before sunset and didn't know if I would make it back in time."

"So, you turn into a man when the sun goes down?"

"I turn into a man when I see the moon. Sometimes they are both in the sky at once, like the evening the gobbolings found you."

I shuddered, remembering. "You said then that you wouldn't have helped me if it wasn't for your search."

"The enchantments that bind me are borne of the selfishness of the first king of Draill. I will not follow in his footsteps."

I shook my head. "I don't understand. You helped me because of the selfishness of your ancestor?"

One by one, he deftly plucked the feathers from the fowl and skewered them in a row as he told me his story.

"My ancestor, Draill Arund, was king of Woebolin." He turned and looked at me, questioning, "Who rules the people now?"

"I am subject to King Thadus, son of Amlard, who reigns over Torromaag," I answered stiffly. His words hinted that I might owe allegiance to him, and I had little desire to serve the Gobboling King.

He nodded. "Tell me, is the wood of Woeb Draill considered part of Torromaag?"

"Woeb Draill?" I asked. "If you mean Draillen Forest, it is considered the duke's land—part of the estate of my late father, Lord John Berendine.

"Lord Antony Hursey, the Earl of Berlhart, has some claim to the territory of Draillen Wood, as well, and I suppose to this castle. It is said he is of royal descent. There was once talk of my betrothal to Lord Hursey," I ended proudly, "but he married another."

"He is not of any royal line of Draill," countered my host, his eyes on the flames. "Every son of the royal line is under the spell."

"Perhaps not of Draill, but the halls of Berlhart hold the tapestries of his descent."

"If he thinks he has any true claim on my land, let him come and attempt to take it! It has been in the House of Draill for generations upon generations! He could be little more than a descendant of stewards," argued my rescuer heatedly. "I am the last of the royal family. With me dies the kingship." He stared blackly at the fire.

"What is your name?" I asked hesitantly, partly to dispel his temper.

"I am Adrun, the sixteenth king of the House of Draill. I prefer to be called 'Draill,' my family name, since I am the last and no other answers to it."

"King Draill, I am most indebted to you for your care, for the…the mercy you've shown to me." My trepidation had grown. The anger in him was a gathering force. I realized now why I had not looked forward to his visits. He brought the chill of his despair and his resentful assistance that I did not welcome but found necessary to accept.

He spoke no word after that but tore off a cooked bird and set it beside me. As I picked the meat from mine, he devoured a bird voraciously, bones and all. I had never seen a man eat a bird in such a manner. He swallowed and began to cough and choke. He got up and went into the garden. I could hear him gagging.

When he returned, he apologized. "I'm not used to eating as a man."

"You spent your day helping me," I said, realizing the cause of his distress. I looked at the poorly sewn sleeve that hung from his arm and determined aloud, "You must let me try again on that shirt. I do believe I can do a better job, if you can be patient."

He did not answer but took up the third bird, this time avoiding the small bones.

"You said you were betrothed to Hursey because of his claim to my lands," he began after a time.

I did not dare to argue with this, but answered, "My mother was his cousin. Our estates would have been joined under one heir. King Thadus consented to the match, but Lord Antony chose to marry beneath him."

Draill was silent for a time, finishing the bird, before he asked, "Were you affronted when he chose another?"

I answered honestly, "Yes. I suppose I was. Of course, I was fourteen at the time and more interested in the idea of marrying than the man himself. I had met him a few times and knew his station. I visited Berlhart once…or twice. That was all." I shrugged. "I've thought little about it since. Really, as heir to my father's estate, I thought it merely doing my duty to marry an equal."

He was silent again as he began to put on his gloves. I had the impression I'd spoken too candidly—that something I'd said displeased him. I know he thought me affected, even spoiled, but that was my life. I could only describe to him what I knew and thought.

When he spoke again, it was to ask another unrelated question. "The man who was with you, the old man the gobbolings killed. Who was he?"

I responded, "Kechum. He was a loyal subject of my father's."

"He didn't seem loyal to me."

So he had seen Kechum's attack upon me! "He was sorry for that at the end."

"So what if he was? He brought you here. And, because of him, the gobbolings feasted on the meat of a very fit horse!"

"They got Portia?" I sighed sadly. I suppose in some corner of my mind I'd nursed the thought of finding my lively mare and leaving Draillen upon her back.

"They devour everything that comes into the wood. Man, woman, horse, and dog. It matters not to them."

I shuddered.

"Are you cold?" he asked, and before I could answer, he leaned toward me and touched my cheek with the back of his gloved hand.

There was something about the look in his eyes that made me fearful. Except for the first night, the thought had not entered my head that he would touch me. It hadn't seemed so close to happening then as it felt to me now.

He must have read my reaction in my face, for he said, "Do not fear. I would not place you under this enchantment."

I blurted out a most ridiculous question. "What _would _happen if you touched…a woman?" I had almost said, 'me,' but caught myself.

"She would never leave this island."

I cast my eyes over the ruined walls in disbelief.

"You must listen carefully to me," he said intently. "If you wish to leave here, you must do all I say because all who live on this island are not so merciful."

"Who else lives here?" I asked. "I have seen no one but you and the bird."

He smiled patiently at my mistake, since he was the bird, and told me, "You have met her already. She is Cylla, the serpent of the water, the song of the undead."

"The song of the undead?" I recalled the haunting melody and told him, "I heard singing last night…"

Surprise and dismay crossed his face. "No, certainly not," Draill said. He studied me carefully, "Surely it wasn't singing you heard."

"Did you not hear it? I think no one could be deaf to that!"

He stared at me with the same troubled expression. "It isn't possible." He shook his head, disbelieving. "You could not hear her."

I wondered at his cryptic protest, and told him wistfully, "Oh, I wish you'd heard it. I long to hear it again."

"Do not hunger after that enchantment, lass!" he cried and gripped my chin roughly. "You must stop your ears when she summons you."

I shifted my eyes from his. I was not at all persuaded I wanted to do such a thing, much less that I _could_.

"Here me out, Lady Esda. This enchantment—you do not know the worst of it.

"Milady, have you ever visited the gaols of Nouffrey? Have you seen the shackle they fix round the ankle of a prisoner until his sentence is carried out?"

I shook my head slowly, thinking of the time my father had kept me from the village because of a particularly gruesome display of punishment in the square. I still remembered how the servants had whispered about it.

"Imagine being shackled with an unseen chain. That is the consequence of my touch. It is the curse of the Gobboling King: to loose the evil and bind the good.

"The sons of Draill are bound by a covenant made long ago by the first Gobboling King, Draill Arund. He was granted immortality by Cylla the Enchantress. Each Gobboling King knows no death, dredging up the dead and tortured. He finds no reprieve from this deathless state, except by means of a mortal heart." He lifted his gloved hand to my cheek, and I drew away warily. "His kiss would make her mortality his own."

He lowered his hand, telling me. "I will not despair of my immortality, as my father and his father before him. I vow to be the last Gobboling King forever."

I contemplated this and asked, "Then your father's kiss took your mother's life?"

"No. He traded his immortality to her for her mortality, leaving her to Cylla's song. My father kept my mother from Cylla as long as he lived, but she could not resist in the end. She was deceived into seeking her freedom from the serpent."

"How was it that your father could resist her song?"

"Cylla covenanted with Draill Arund that no son of Draill would hear it."

Then he told me of Cylla. "She is one of three powerful sisters. She triumphed over the two by means of Draill Arund. By him, she exiled the second sister, Madrys, and trapped the third, known only as Chantbreaker. Once Arund learned of her deception, it was too late. Chantbreaker was lost." He laughed such a bitter laugh as he settled beside me and stared into the fire. To himself he said, "What better form for Cylla to take than a serpent."

I curled my fingers around a tile on the floor, remembering the pale blue coils tightening round me. "How many sea serpents are there in these waters?"

"One. And she has many faces." He stared into the fire, his brow furrowed darkly. "And she will take you, as well, if you succumb to her song." He turned to look at me, his keen, dark eyes alight. "She will lure you and draw you down into her pit."

"And kill me," I thought aloud.

"If you were immortal you would still exist." He picked up a stick and fed it to the flames. "She will prey on your very existence, just as she thrives off of my mother. The immortal live on in her."

"Can't you free her?"

He shook his head slowly with a faraway expression. "She cannot be freed. All are hers now."

I started to shake my head. "Why would your father bring your mother here? Why would he give his child such a fate? I don't understand."

Returning to himself abruptly, he stated, "No, you don't understand. You can't know what it is to want to die the death of a common man and be at peace!"

"How desperate," I whispered.

"Perhaps it was desperation, and perhaps it was selfishness. After all, it was Draill Arund's desire for Cylla's power that brought about the Gobboling Kingdom.

"Is there nothing that can be done then to end the terrible enchantment?"

A small, hope-filled smile came to his lips. "Only Comfort knows."

"Comfort?" I repeated, thinking he meant the state of being.

"The white bear. She lives in Draillen Wood. Of course," he corrected quickly, "she isn't really a bear. She was one betrayed and spellbound, as well." He pushed his hair back from his forehead and moved away from the heat of the fire. I noticed then that the gash the gobboling had made in his head wasn't there. There wasn't the slightest mark.

"She is very old. She knows more of this enchantment than any other." He became thoughtful. "I have often wondered if she knows where Chantbreaker, the third sister, is."

I gasped at a sudden jolt of pain in my leg and shifted it to ease the throb.

He returned to the present, looking at me almost harshly. "We must move you before morning." He examined my ankle and stood, telling me, "Rest, while I make a place for a fire on the rocks this evening. It will not be as warm for you, but…" His voice trailed away.

"Thank you, but I am not tired. I have slept most of the day."

"I know. But, still, you must try to rest."

He went away, and I shifted my body again. Truly, there was no relief from the stabbing pain moving up my leg. It shot up past my knee. I settled on my right hand, my elbow propped on the uneven tiles, and stared into the darkness above the fire.

I was in this position only a short time when Cylla's song reached my ears. The crackle of the fire was lost on me as I listened. I cried and longed to be where the song was. It told me about the peace and the painlessness I would feel if I searched for the singer and found her. She called me Anba; and, later, she threatened never to sing to me again if I refused her. That was the hardest of all. When the song faded, I was in anguish that I would never hear it again. Then, like a dream, I began to return to myself and regret that I had not followed King Draill's advice and stopped my ears. My state was much worse. In my reverie, I'd tried to stand and walk in the direction of that haunting song, dislodging the bone in my ankle again. The throb that had spread up my leg was now accompanied by the jabbing edge of bone cutting through my ankle.

I was in much agony when he came for me. He picked me up, and the jostling to my ankle caused me to cry out. He carried me to the rocks overlooking the water.

"Your skin is like fire, lass," he whispered as brought me to the baths.

That was the last thing I clearly remembered. Everything else was only in snatches of consciousness. Icy cold water on my leg brought pain I could not endure. I remember seeing the blinding sunshine. Then I heard Cylla's song again in the night. I remember thinking I saw my father and begging him to take me home.

Once, I woke, standing upright in Draill's embrace, as he declared heatedly, "I vow it all, if only you will help her!" I thought he spoke it to me and contemplated what he could mean. I drifted out of reason again before I could gain any better understanding. Then I woke to gobboling shrieks and the feel of powdery white fur under my hands.

* * *

Guest: Thanks again. I'll work on it.

Quiet Mindreader: A lamb pasty is a meat pie. Obviously, you're still on the right track with your guesses!


	6. Comfort

Chapter 6 – Comfort

I woke to the smell of lavender. The leaves were tied to a post at the head of my bed. It brought back wonderful memories of home. I sat up, my head swimming. My shoulders weren't sore, and I could move my left arm and hand.

The room was bare and hung with white tapestries. Someone was there with me. I saw the furry white bear on all fours, pacing in front of the white hangings.

I wasn't alarmed. "Comfort, is it morning?" I asked.

The bear was whiter than the room, whiter than any true animal could be. She turned her face toward me and snuffled her blanched nose.

"I feel much better," I told her and wiggled my toes. They were warm under the soft, down-stuffed linen and furs. My ankle tingled with soreness and disuse, but that was all.

She snuffled again and padded against the heavy draperies, which lifted and parted. Beyond was white nothingness. The bear disappeared into the whiteness.

I was awake for a time after that. I could not tell whether it was day or night. Darkness seemed to feather the boundaries of my white room. I thought that if I pulled the tapestries aside, I would wake fully. As I moved to rise, I felt upon my person. My clothes were missing, and so was my dagger. I clutched at my coverings, searching, hoping that the weapon wasn't gone. My father had given it to me the night before he'd married Lady Orinda.

"_Little Esda, you are my greatest treasure. Your mother gave her life to give you to me, and I promised her to protect you. I have tried. Do you know I have tried?"_

"_Oh, yes, Da. And I adore you!" I told him, as I clasped my hands and rested them on his knee._

"_Ah, but, Esda, you have needed that greatest of protections." My father sighed. "I have been negligent, too preoccupied with Nouffrey to have seen that you received the care of a mother." He grasped my shoulders and pressed his lips to my forehead, a tender act he had taken to over the past year. "Lady Orinda has opened my eyes to this, and she has willingly agreed to take you into her heart. Shall you do the same, child?"_

"_Of course, Da. I shall love her. I think I already do!" My hope bubbled up inside of me. I thought my father dear to me, and that my new stepmother would only increase the joy of our little family. For I had yearned for a mother many years._

"_You must be patient with her and give place to her in her new estate."_

"_I will. I will not begrudge her one thing. I will help her in all things."_

"_Yes. It is right, and the mark of a true daughter that you help her and submit to her."_

_Then his eyes became misty, and I could not understand such a thing. I had never seen my father cry. "Oh, Da," I whispered, my eyes answering with their own swelling flood. "What ails you? Is it the leg again?"_

"_No. I fear I have waited too long," he choked._

_I sat down on my father's lap and wrapped my arms around his neck, pressing my cheek against his whiskery one. He patted my hair in the old way, and we said nothing until he told me to go to bed._

_As I moved away to obey, he recalled something; and, bending to pick up a wooden box resting beside his chair, he told me, "Wait. I almost forgot why I sent for you."_

_I sat down upon his footstool once more, and he opened the lid. "You have seen the dagger of Lesander's Victory."_

_I nodded, my brow furrowed._

"_It is yours."_

"_But—"_

"_There is no point in waiting until I die for you to receive it. It is yours, Lesandra," he repeated, pushing the rectangular box into my hands. I looked down at the dagger as it rested in its velvet casing, our family's most treasured possession. "The king presented it when he bestowed the duchy of Istledon to his knight, Lesander of the Mistlands, the ancestor for whom you are named, for his valiance in battle. Lesander made a vow to serve the king, to make no alliance with enchanters, and to eschew the ways of darkness. Each heir of the house of Istledon makes the same vow upon receiving the dagger."_

"_Then I will do the same," I said, and solemnly pledged my allegiance to the throne._

"_I have had a sheath measured for it, and that will be ready in a fortnight. Until then," he tapped the lid of the box, "keep it in the box. If you should ever need it, know that Lesander's Victory will always go with you."_

_I turned the handle in my small hand. The jewels glittered in the firelight. The ruby in the center, only slightly smaller than my hand when I made a tight fist, was deep red. I didn't want to accept it. I felt a sense of foreboding, more than just the somber responsibility of keeping the treasured proof of my family's courage and fealty. I feared it meant something would happen to my father._

The dagger of Lesander's Victory. Had it been take from me? Did Comfort have it? It had saved my life in the most confounding ways, both when I had made a pathetic stab at Cylla and when the steely blade had turned the gobboling into dust before my eyes. What power it held, I could not know; but I felt afraid without it. I felt my protection had been stripped from me. Without it I feared I would not succeed in escaping the enchanted wood that surrounded me.

I thought of Draill Adrun, his imprisonment and his despair, even his torn sleeve. I pitied him. I pitied his past and his future.

The passing days had brought a great chill. My father had married in the spring and now autumn was creeping in. I lay awake, shivering, covered in the pillow of feathers and furs. The white bear appeared at my bedside again. I watched her out of curiosity as she paced the length of the tapestries, padding back and forth. The heat grew from the labored breathing of the bear until my eyelids grew heavy, and I drifted off.

A vision stole upon my slumber. I was in a field rich in color. Yellow buttercups and white daisies danced in the warm breeze. The bright sun blazed above me in the blue sky. I felt invigorated and ran through the field of flowers. I ran until I happened upon a small figure seated in cross-legged fashion among the blossoms, his head bowed to the earth. I stopped and waited for the boy to look up, to be aware of me.

He did not look up but concentrated on his work of pulling up the flowers. He grabbed a patch of them by their stems and yanked them out by their roots, smashing them between his dirty palms sulkily.

"Hello there, boy. Is this your field?"

"It is no one's field." He sighed and added captiously, "I have to be here. I promised."

I settled down beside him, interested in this sullen boy's story.

"I don't think it's so bad, being here," I told him. "I was sick. Now I'm better. Now I can run!"

"Then run." He looked up at me, his dark eyes speaking his annoyance. "I have to be here, but you like it."

Something about those eyes prompted me to say, "I know you! Don't I know you?"

The boy tilted his head to one side and answered, "Well, of course!"

"Your eyes are like Draill Adrun."

He kicked out his legs in a huff. "I _am_ Draill Adrun, fool of a girl! I vowed to sit here and talk to you. I have to do it, and I don't like it." His eyes flashed, and he crossed his arms petulantly.

"You have to?" It was my turn to cross my arms. "I like that! What a silly boy you are to think talking to me is a punishment!" It never once seemed strange to me that this boy was Draill Adrun. I accepted it because I knew it was so.

"I like that!" I repeated and harrumphed. And then I decided I would ignore him. I had a mind to leave, but as I turned I noticed a child's lute lying among the buttercups.

I picked up the instrument, which looked so like my own. Boad, my father's chief musician, had taught me to play a special ballad for a celebration at Nouffrey when I was eight. I began to sing, my fingers strumming the accompaniment.

I sang the story of a maiden who falls in love with a man whom her father captures and brings to his castle to train as a warrior. Won by her kindness and beauty, the captive man tells the maiden he will become great to win her love. She tells him no fame of his could change her. He tells her he will fight any suitor to win her love, and she tells him there is no suitor fitting. Then he tells her he will give her everything she wants if only she will love him, and she says everything is nothing to her.

I sang the last verses, wrapped up in the tale.

"Then I will die of love, fair maid."  
"How then shall my love live?"  
"By the stillness of a wounded heart."  
"Is that all thou canst give?"

"I know that song," interrupted my companion, the obstinate boy.

I ignored him and continued.

"How cold art thou to my deep grief. What more canst thou ask of me?"  
"Sir, thou hast promised riches, fame, but one thing want I from thee."

"Ask on; I'll furnish it readily. Say on, I'll give it thee. Do!"  
"Dear sir, I must have fidelity; thine heart must be loyal and true."

I played the last notes, a flourish I had worked so tirelessly to perfect when I was eight.

The boy Draill, looked up from watching my finger-work upon the lute, his eyes alight.

"That was good," he said. "Much better than your mending."

I laughed, both pleased at the compliment and solaced by the music.

He joined in, laughing so heartily that I laughed all the more. Soon we were rolling in flowers in a fit of hilarity.

It might have continued, for I wanted to laugh louder and louder. I felt the great child-like temptation to be as boisterous as I could be in this open field. But I rolled over too far and my arm met the boy's. I jerked away quickly.

"You've touched me!" I accused him, cradling my arm as though it might harbor some putridity.

Still laughing, he grinned. "'Tisn't real. It's what you want. I told you that."

"Of course it is real! How foolish you are!"

"This." He waved his hand over his head as he lay on his back on the ground of crushed blooms. "This is something you like." He pointed to the lute. "Your music, your age, how young I am...everything."

Still, I shook my head, refusing to believe him.

He sat up and told me, "Think of a stream winding through the field."

And just as I did, it appeared beside us!

"You see," he said. He stood, and I rose to stand beside the water. He took my hand and drew me to see my reflection. I was eight again. I was even missing a tooth! I looked at Draill's reflection.

"You wished me to be a little boy. So I am, and I tell you what I'm thinking. And you say what you are thinking because you are a little girl."

"It's easier to be a girl and not a lady," I admitted, nodding. And then I ran. I tripped through the stream and across the field of flowers as far as I could run, on and on. I ran to chase away the thoughts. I ran to escape the truth of what Draill had said, that it wasn't real. It meant my freedom, my happiness, wasn't real, either.

I didn't want to know Draill the boy. It wasn't good to know him as a child. It would make it more difficult when I escaped.

Then I saw where the end of the field lay. I slowed and walked to the edge of the white and yellow blossoms, entering a small clearing surrounded by old, gnarled trees that arched toward one another like the overreaching timbers of a stately hall. At the end of this clearing was a fire with a large, black pot simmering over its flame. A small, old lady stirred the great basin, smiling over its contents like a pleased mother might smile at her child. She lifted her eyes to mine and they spoke—not her lips, her eyes.

"There you are, little one. All well again."

I was content to be beside her. Comfort stirred, stirred, stirred. The cloying steam drifted from the big cauldron and wafted toward me.

"You have a well-kept secret, Lesandra."

I thought to myself what she could mean, and I reached for the dagger at my thigh. I felt the handle and sighed in relief that it was there.

"You must prove your loyalty, your fidelity to him!" Her pale eyes grew wide, drawing me in. "You mustn't desert him, Lesandra. You mustn't!"

I knew she spoke of the Gobboling King. That she knew my name did not surprise me. Everything I was seemed known to her, and she loved me. Not the daughter of a duke, or the hapless guest of a king, but _me_.

Yet, I felt a wave of trepidation at the thought of going back to Draill Adrun, to his despair, to the dreary castle ruins.

"Only the one who carries the blood of Lesander can break the enchantment." She stirred the pot and looked at me again. "Do not reject his kiss; it is your greatest gift."

It was time for me to take of the contents of the bowl. She brought the long arm of the wooden spoon to the surface and blew the steam away.

The cup of the spoon was smaller than a thimble. One spoonful would fill me and make me strong. Comfort had fed me such a spoonful each night.

I tasted it. It was smooth and warm as fresh butter. The night before, it had tasted of savory apples.

She told me with her eyes, "It is the last. Tomorrow you will go with my protection."

It made me low to think of leaving her, but I though of freedom. I would be strong. I would escape Draillen Wood. Finally.

"Little one," Comfort pleaded with her eyes, "Do not turn away from your victory."

'My victory?' I thought, remembering my father's words as he'd presented the family dagger. _"If you should ever need it, know that Lesander's Victory will always go with you."_


	7. The Bog Woman

Chapter 7 – The Bog Woman

When I woke, I lay on the floor of a silent, empty den of dirt and sticks in my linen tunic and breeches. My hand went to my dagger, and I felt the metal through the leather sheath. When I tried my ankle, it felt perfectly sound. I stood and saw my father's boots nearby. Lacing them up, I looked toward the bleary light that reached me from the entrance of Comfort's den and shivered. A cloud stretched across the sky, like the mist of early morning. Happily, I thought of my escape.

I remembered Comfort's instruction, not to desert Draill Adrun. I was deeply grateful to her for her care, but I was certain her advice to remain with the Gobboling King—to be kissed my him!—was not for my best. I knew she had used illusions and mysterious arts to heal me, and that she was spellbound in some way; so, while I was beholden for her healing abilities, I distrusted her. To leave Draillen Wood, I told myself, was to leave the mischief surrounding it.

The cool mist blanketed the trees as I stepped from the barren hole. I started off, though I did not know my way. I felt refreshed but chilled as I traipsed through short, hard grasses. The atmosphere felt moist to me, but the vegetation crunched dryly. My boots rhythmically snapped the short, dry twigs until the strange, mossy grasses gave way to a brown series of pools as far as eye could see. Thinking to avoid the swamp, which must lead to the sea, I turned toward what I thought was the heart of the forest. I had not gone far before I spied the sea ahead and turned back.

I realized a most distressing matter as I skirted the growing pools of water. I'd thought it morning when I'd left Comfort's den, but the light was waning. The chilling mist veiling the land had deluded me. There seemed to be no end to the bog. Knolls of trees and brush rising out of the water became sparse. Thinking I must find solid land soon, I made my way toward one particularly thick copse of trees.

The frogs, croaking in unison, died down. The hairs at my neck stood on end. I felt someone was near just before I saw a flicker of a shadow among the tree trunks.

"Who goes there?" I called. I stepped forward and my boot sunk into the mud, releasing a scent that I knew well. It had surrounded me night and day while I had held vigil beside my father's bed.

When no one answered, I began to believe it had only been some animal going into hiding until I glimpsed the adumbral figure again as it moved behind a tree.

My heart pounded in my chest.

"Who's there? Come out! I see you!" I cried; and my hand went to my dagger, though I did not draw it.

The sun was low in the sky, and the figure hid itself so that it remained a dark form under shadow of the tree.

"Come out!" I demanded. "I have only to ask of you one question, and I will not keep you: In which direction is Castle Draill of the Gobboling King?"

You might ask why I asked for the castle and not the way out of the wood. I was concerned that I would not escape by nightfall if I did not seek the king's aid again. And so I asked for the one direction from which I thought to receive help.

To my astonishment, out stepped Draill from behind the tree!

I said nothing, and he spoke not a word.

"You have been following me," I finally observed.

"Yes," he answered, and then he began to step toward me in a skulking fashion. I doubted his appearance more and more the closer he came.

When he stopped, meters away, I waited expectantly for him to address me, puzzled by his attitude. But he did not speak.

Presently, I prompted, "Are we far from the castle?"

"No," he said. "I will show you."

"In truth, I was merely looking for you," I explained. "Is there time yet for me to leave this forest by nightfall?"

"Yes," he said. "I will show you." He marched into the bog, but I did not follow. His legs sank deeply. The murky water was above his calves.

"Is there a way around this—this morass?" I asked, remaining at the bank. The mist that already chilled me made me desirous of avoiding the swamp.

He stopped and stared at me with an enigmatic expression, answering, "Yes."

Ahead of me he stepped to the bank of the bog, and I followed at a distance. I knew something was wrong. He had always had a tendency to be reticent, but his manner was uncharacteristic. I followed a few paces, looked about me, and stopped again. The muddy water was flooding the land quickly. It was on all sides of us.

I stopped again. "Draill Adrun," I called to him. "The tide is coming in. I don't think this is the way."

"This is the way," he returned. "I will show you."

When I hesitated still, he held out his hand to me.

"I will show you," he repeated, and something about his eyes troubled me. Not just the look of them, but a certain daring expression I had seen once on the face of a presumptuous stable boy as he'd helped me from my horse. I looked at his bare hand, and then I saw that the sleeve of his shirt billowed and hung perfectly along his arm!

In a flash I stepped back and went for my dagger. "You are lying," I accused him. "Who are you?"

He began to sway with the currents and rise, like an apparition!

"Who are you?" I demanded, challenging with my metal.

A voice that curdled my blood issued from his lips. "Anba!" It was not Draill's voice, and I saw the dark, emptiness of its eyes.

Retreating, I fell back into the mud that rose behind. The sludgy mire came up to my calves and caught me fast. The scent of death hit me fully as I began to sink. I choked on my cry and reached for the bank. The thing that was not Draill laughed.

It snatched at my dagger, but instead of catching up my weapon, the Draill-thing shrieked, its hand breaking away and leaving a mound of ash on my fist. The ruby-red stone of Lesander's Victory glowed. I raised the dagger in defense, just as the Draill-thing sank into the slough and became naught but a mass of mud itself!

My teeth chattered as the cold, rising water lapped against my legs. I tried to pull myself to solid ground again but fell forward, my hands hitting the mire. The smell of rot made me gag, while I felt my hand, gripping my dagger, drawn down like iron to lodestone. Up from the mud between my arms rose the face of the Gobboling King, demanding, "Give me Anba!"

"Madrys!" I knew his true voice in an instant, and I saw the fear in the Draill-thing's expression before the face sunk into the mud beneath me.

Instantly, a woman rose from the mire inches from where I knelt. I knew it was the same creature, but now she was draped in long brown hair that reached to her ankles and bare feet. She floated on the moving water; and, lifting her head, she looked past me.

"Draill of the gobbolings, come to wake us!" she mocked.

"Help me!" I cried to Draill, twisting to see him while tugging at my dagger. The sludge was pulling it downward, and with it my arm.

"Let her go, Madrys!"

"Let her go?" the creature rasped. "Come for her yourself! Wake the dead with your regal entrance. Else her bones will host a legion of your obedient gobbolings!"

Draill did not move.

"Or would you wish to bargain for her life, like your father?" She tsked and glared at him under her sooty, wet lashes. "Beg, mighty king! Beg for me to return your love to you, you who can never know love!"

The dagger was turning, twisting my wrist beneath the surface of the slough as she spoke. I wailed and ground my teeth in determination. My father's dagger would not be taken from me!

Draill hesitated no longer, but tore into the bog, splashing the putrid liquid around him.

The floating woman sighed with satisfaction as he made his way to my side. "Wake, my children!" she cried. "He summons you!"

The swamp began to quake. The mud swam and whirled, loosening its grip on my dagger. As he pulled me out of the bog, my aching hand went limp and I dropped my weapon in the mud.

"No!" I cried, pulling away from him. He saw the glint of the steel and grabbed it out of the swirling pools before it sank. Securing the dagger between his teeth, he swung me into arms and carried me to solid ground.

In the rising bog, a narrow strip of brush remained that clung to the twining roots of two trees. There was little other refuge; the water was flooding the forest, and we were surrounded on all sides, but for small, saturated chunks of land that had not yet been engulfed. The bog woman had vanished in the descending darkness. A murky fog rose to meet it, drifting above the mire like spirits escaping from the endless sludge. Through the vapor, I thought I glimpsed moving forms. Mounds of mud began to rise. Mud-laden, malformed fingers clutched the side of the bank in front of me, and the crown of a head sprang out of the water.

Draill took my dagger from his mouth, flipped its handle round to grip it, and thrust the blade into the muddy head of the creature crawling toward us. He drew his sword as the mud-thing fell back into the bog and pushed the hilt of my dagger into my hand.

Keeping back to back, we looked for an escape.

"That way!" he shouted, pointing his sword to my right before slicing off an arm that sprang up from the mud.

Scanning the rising dark waters for the land he had espied, I saw only a few lumps of darkness pooled in the sludge. He shoved me forward with his elbow. "Run!"

And I ran. In my mud-weighted boots I ran through the slough. Draill was right behind me, fending off the monsters as they emerged from the water.

"Beside you!" he cried, and I barely had time to turn and jab aimlessly at the hand coming up from the mud, when Draill took hold of my waist and flung me toward a knot of land still above the bog. I tumbled and rose quickly to see Draill attack two more bog creatures. The sight of them, emerging to their torsos, made me mad with fright to get away, but Draill quickly outran me. Latching onto my wrist, he pulled me behind him until he could catch me up over his shoulder. He raced through the trees and up a hill, where he deposited me.

He turned back to fight. More and more of them emerged, masses rising out of the bog, walking over one another, and pouring onto the land. They seemed to have no common target, though many dragged their misshapen forms up the hill to meet Draill's sword. I could see their twisted bodies, drenched in sludge. They were gobbolings! My heart thudded to my belly as Draill thrust through one gobbling; and, with the creature still skewered on the blade, he forced two back unto the quaking mire. On the top of the hill I stayed, wary and keeping my dagger at the level of my face. I knew by the glow of the gem in its center when the gobboling uprising was over. The ruby grew dim and faded. The bog ceased to churn, and I breathed a sigh of relief when Draill turned away to scale the hill.

Suddenly, a column of mud rose up at his back, and I cried out the warning, "Draill, behind you!"

He slewed round to see the figure of the bog woman, floating toward him. Her pupil-less, dark eyes flickered with a cruel light that even I could see from the top of the hill.

"Foolish Draill!" she wailed, lifting her arms beseechingly toward the knoll where I stood. One of her hands was missing. "You held her," she cried, "and did not know her!"

Draill spoke not a word to me as we trekked across the hill, away from the bog. I could not have responded if he had; my teeth were chattering too much to say a word. We came to a cliff above the water. It wasn't steep, but my guide was constantly on his guard, so that the crags in the rocks slowed us. He was wary of coming upon more gobbolings, for the night was full upon us. There was no further peril until we reached the shore, when a large boulder crashed as we rounded the rocks. One of the pieces that separated knocked the side of my face; but I continued on, my head spinning.

There at the shore swayed the black, rotting boat. I knew it was the same one that had sunk me. It was also the one that had carried me in safe keeping across the sea more than once while mastered by the Gobboling King.

"Is everything here spellbound?" I muttered to myself, as I stepped in and fell to my knees under the lurch of the boat.

We were a long way from the island. It was well into the night when we approached the ruins from the southwest. I could see the torches of the gobbolings to the north, behind the castle from our position in the sea. The torches were many and created a soft glow around the sleeping remnant of the lone, crumbling turret. There was something quite lovely about its silhouette in the flickering light.

"The legendary Castle Draill," spoke the king cynically as he plied the oars. "Draill Arund ruled much of your Toromaag once, and there was peace between the kingdoms of Woebolin and Rhomaag, to the east. This was the last stronghold of retreat, a bastion in wartime. Now look at it: nothing but a pile of rubbish. A fitting place for a king of gobbolings."

"But you're not their king." I shifted slightly, trying to see his face in the darkness. "They are not subject to you at all."

"Ah, but they are. Did you not see them rise from Madrys' Bog? Tonight I brought forth another army of them that escaped to the wood."

"So, they aren't truly men! They are her—Madrys'—spellbound creatures!"

"Spellbound, yes. But they are spawned from men who were lured there to drown. A great many of them were of the armies of Castle Draill, who fought in the fall of Woebolin, known as the Battle of the Mists."

I knew of that battle, the final battle in the war against a cruel king. In it, Lesander of Istledon had fought for Torromaag, called Rhomaag then, and been victorious. He was richly rewarded for his allegiance, a reward which included my dagger. I spoke not a word of this, for now I began to comprehend who Draill was. I knew of the powerful king who had been crushed in the War Against Evil. I had never been told the name of the king or the kingdom he ruled, only that he had given himself to enchantments. They had turned his heart and given him terrible power.

"But then," said I on perceiving the connection, "that means the Gobboling King and the one destroyed in the War Against—the Battle of the Mists—are the same. Then Draill Arund wasn't destroyed in the battle?"

"He was killed in the battle, but he was destroyed long before. He lost his will to the serpent, Cylla, and lost his armies to her spellbinder sister, Madrys. His only hope was the last sister, Chantbreaker, but he entrapped her in the bog during the battle. He lost his life and left his heir forever enslaved by the sisters' spells."

"Chantbreaker," I repeated. We were coming around the island, and the brightness of the gobbolings' torches made my head hurt behind my eyes. I closed my eyes to right the spinning which grew stronger, and we did not speak for a time.

I asked, "Your ancestor, Draill Arund—you said he was the first Gobboling King. But he died in battle. How could he die if he was under an immortal spell?"

"I do not know. He was given immortality and the gobboling armies to fight against Rhomaag. Perhaps Madrys betrayed him. Every Draill heir thereafter has returned to Madrys and summoned more gobbolings in his zeal to find Chantbreaker."

The boat docked, and Draill told me to stand. I did and stumbled ashore. My vision and balance were affected briefly before my head cleared and I could right myself.

"You took a heavy blow," he observed, lifting the side of my face with his gloved hand as though examining it in the darkness. The light of the torches on the shore was behind me.

I touched the tender spot at my temple and felt the dried blood there. "I don't know how you can see it."

"I see many things in the darkness. You will rest, and be mended soon."

We climbed the steps to the ruined castle, when I asked, "Is it because of Comfort? I have felt very strong since I left her, though I haven't the strength that you do. Even now, I do not feel weakened. Was it the special medicine she gave to me?"

"She gave to you a protection of magic."

My mouth opened in surprise. "A protection of magic!"

"For you to live in a spellbound land, you must be protected."

Disappointed, my hand went to my head again. "But I thought she only healed me."

"She would not agree to heal you unless I made certain concessions, one being that you would remain at Castle Draill."

"Was another concession your presence in my dream—in the field?"

"It was."

"Tell me then: what changes will this protection make in me?" My heart was pounding, and it was not because of the many steps we climbed. Lesander's blood flowed through my veins. I had made a vow. What kind of protection was this? Was I allied with the ways of darkness?

"I cannot tell you." He reached to take my elbow to direct me away from the last step. "I can but tell you the power she wields is only for good."

* * *

A/N: Are the explanations making sense? Do you have any theories to share after this chapter? Please, please share your thoughts!


	8. A Question of Love

**A/N: I was sick last week. I know: Excuses, excuses... :)**

**Part 1 of a double update.**

Chapter 8 – A Question of Love

From the queen's hall, he led me to the narrow closet I had seen on my first visit. The waning moonlight crept into the small chamber that smelled of game. Amidst the broken stone steps, a small fire pit had been dug. The large rock that had been wedged in the roof now braced the remaining upper stone steps. The wooden stool was against the wall. Beside it, a long rope crisscrossed between four posts, topped with sacks of goose feathers to make a bed. An indigo-dyed, velvet covering lay over this. It was trimmed with ermine, and I recognized it immediately. It was my cloak, which I had left with Kechum. I took up the material, rubbing it between my fingers. It brought back who I was. I, the daughter of a duke who had entered an unwelcoming kingdom of endless snares and deceptions, was pleased with a primitive bed of feathers and my own garment returned to me.

"I spotted that yesterday morning," he said, watching me gather the cloak to my chest.

Warmth crept into my heart for the man who had brought me such luxury. I was filled with gratitude, so that I could only whisper, "I cannot thank you enough."

My eyes must have shown my feelings. He beamed at my few words, and I lowered my eyes guiltily. I could not tell him I had no intention of staying. He seemed to expect it after his promise to Comfort to accept me.

"There is a bit of candle for you on the stool," he said. "And I will light the fire. I think it will be easier to keep in the heat with walls about you. The snow is coming." He knelt at the pit centered among the broken stones. As the small branches began to burn, the smoke escaped upward. The chill of the room remained at its edges, but the center was made warmer.

I brought the candle to the flame, the twine wick catching fire. I stood holding my candle, pleased but not knowing what to say.

He asked, "Are you hungry?"

"I am not. I do not recall eating, but I haven't any hunger."

He nodded in understanding, and I imagined we shared the same thought: That this, too, was Comfort's doing.

"Then I will leave you." He took one step to the opening, and he seemed to hesitate.

I did not want him to leave. There were many questions I wanted to ask of him. And so, I asked, "Will you not tell me more of Comfort? Is she the woman or the bear?"

He smiled and seemed to welcome my question, stepping back into the small room. "I know only that she was once betrayed. She cannot be seen as anything but a bear by physical eye."

"I saw her as a woman in a sort of dream," I told him.

"Yes, and once she shows herself to you, she can visit you always in dreams."

I smiled at this, for it made me glad to think I would see her again.

"Then she visits you?" I asked.

Draill's face clouded over. "Yes. She came to me when you were looking for the way out of the forest today. She warned me that Madrys had found you."

My heart went to my throat when I realized Comfort had known my thoughts, even in this. I looked into his face, admitting, "It is true. I had planned to escape."

Draill smiled. It was the bitter smile he had given me many times. "The Gobboling King alone knows the way out of Draillen Wood. I led you to escape once. If you try to leave without my guidance, Madrys will be upon you. Remember that all who have been lost in the forest have met their end in her depths."

"King Draill," I pleaded, for I did not like his steely tone. "You will guide me, won't you?"

I could not read his expression. We stared upon each other, captive and captor.

"I have no choice," he said, and left my closet.

I sat down on my bed, angry and confused. What did he mean? Had he no choice but to imprison me? My fingers found the softness of the velvet cloth of my bed. I brought my cloak round me for solace. My eyes on the flames that rose above the stones, my blood swept through my veins in fury and fear. I questioned why Draill had no choice in releasing me from the grip of his spellbound kingdom. He'd wanted to do so before I had been nursed by Comfort. I surmised it had to be because of his vow to her. Had she not attempted to persuade me to return to him?

Regardless of what Draill had claimed—that Comfort's power was used only for the good—I had no reason to believe that staying was for my good. There was nothing in her instructions to me that I wished to obey, though I wondered at her words that it was my victory. To stay with him was no victory! It would only commit me to a miserable existence. I had no power to protect myself from the two sisters, Cylla and Madrys, and there was certainly nothing I could do for the son of a wicked king. He must bear the consequences of his fathers. What victory was it for me to partake in his exile by choice? He had made it abundantly clear he would not have chosen such an existence for himself.

I would not do it! It had been a mystery why Comfort had made the request of me. 'Request?' thought I. 'How is it a request when I cannot leave?'

I left my bed and walked into the open hall, my velvet cloak cast about my shoulders. I went to the tiny fountain and drank the water, my mind wrapped up in thoughts of escaping. A motion caught my eye as I brought my head up from drinking. Draill's figure moved among the dormant fruit trees in the gardens.

Silently, I made my way toward him. He paced in a restless manner. As I approached, I heard him say, "She has no desire to stay! If she did, I would abide by my word! I thought you had persuaded her—though I cannot imagine how one could be persuaded to remain on this wasted bit of island."

Then he was silent. He seemed to stare at a point between two old trees in the orchard, listening.

"Love me?" he suddenly barked. "She could never love me. My father and his father took their wives from the clutches of Madrys. You know that! The most my mother ever felt was gratitude her fate was not that of gobbolings. But it was worse for her! You knew her end, Comfort." Draill shook his head slowly. "I will not force upon the lass the role of queen of this desolate land!"

He was silent, listening, before he responded, "Even if she could, I would not! I cannot love, Comfort. It is impossible! I cannot love. I've vowed to be the last Gobboling King! There will be no heir to this wretched throne! Why do you attempt to persuade me in this? I _will_ be the last!"

He waved his hand in front of his face, as though warding off an argument. "I will hear no more."

He whirled and saw me.

"Where is she?" I asked. "Where is Comfort?"

His eyes went to the place between the trees. Something told me she was there, but I could not see her.

"She will come to you when you are in the dream state," he told me.

"I cannot sleep."

"I know," he answered and began to walk toward the fountains. "Your sleep will be changed as mine has been."

"When do you sleep?" I asked, considering how he spent his days as a bird.

"I am in the dream state now," he replied.

He looked at me briefly, saw my consternation, and added, "You will see."

~0~

"Why do you not come to me, my darling? I know you hear my voice!" All through the night she beckoned me until I wanted to tear out my hair. She did not sing to me. The serpent was trying me with her endless litany of talk. I could almost wish I heard her song, but I had no chance of fighting against her enchanted melody. For I would go to her when she sang; I yearned to draw near her. But her words grated on me. I wished only to quiet them.

I waited impatiently for the sun to rise. When it did, I did not know it. Instead, I found myself on the warming stone of the baths on the other side of the grounds, the moon a crescent in the sky. The day had past, unknown to me!

Draill stood before me on his heels, his arms crossed and a knowing look on his face. "There you are. Back again," he greeted me.

To my look of wonder, he explained, "When the last ray of the sun disappeared, you awoke." He smiled knowingly. "Comfort has aligned you with the sun. I suppose, so that we might speak to one another while I am unchanged."

My face fell. "I have slept all the day? Do you mean I will always sleep and never see the sun?"

"You will learn to use your dream state as I have, once you've recognized when your mind is at rest." He stepped off the rock and walked past me to stare out at the sea. "Though I am in the dream state, I am aware of what I do. It is part of Comfort's magic. In the day, she gives me freedom to roam as a bird."

"Did I become a bird?"

"No. You did not change. You will remain here on the island."

"Then I am a prisoner." I raised my arms imploringly and asked, "Why, Draill? What has changed you? You were willing to help me escape Draillen Wood before!"

He was silent to my entreaty, his face unfathomable.

I opened my mouth to plead again when Cylla's voice accosted me. "I know you're there. You can't leave me. I will not cease to call to you, Anba."

"Ah!" I cried, putting my hands over my ears. "Will she never be quieted? Am I to leap from night to night and driven mad, as well?"

"It is Cylla," Draill said, interpreting my distress.

"Of course it is Cylla!" I ground out through my teeth. "She mocks me with her constant chatter. I hate her!"

"Good! Then she cannot lure you," he said exultantly, lifting his hand to smooth his flaxen hair in relief. "All last night I sat at your door in case you should go to her, but Comfort has seen to her enchantments."

"But I want her to _stop calling to me_! I think I would go to her just to quiet her forever!"

He shook his head, smiling. "No you won't. That serpent is your worst enemy, Lady Esda. She will take you from yourself, and you will be hers forever."

My eyes snapped as I stared at him. "And is that any great boon to what I have now? Under this magic and unable to leave this horrible place?"

"It is different. Very different," he answered in a tone of warning. "Cylla is a monster. You saw her."

"I did. I saw her faces." I shuddered and asked, "How many face does she have?"

"I have not tarried to count them."

"Where is Chantbreaker, Draill? How can we find her?" I was desperate to drive Cylla to her end quickly.

"The task has proved impossible."

"Why?" I demanded impatiently.

"Because I have searched! My father has searched. His father searched before him. For years each Gobboling King has confronted Madrys and scoured her bog, searching for Chantbreaker. And how they mock me, those mindless, foul gobbolings, gathering at the bank each night to remind me I have failed. I've searched for liberty, while Madrys has imprisoned more of her victims."

"I heard you say to Comfort you are the last Gobboling King. Certainly you will find Chantbreaker!"

"It is impossible." Draill sat down on the rock and began, "I told you that Draill Arund went after Cylla's enchantments. What I did not tell you was the legend that his queen knew of Cylla's deception. It is said she feigned her own death and fled the castle, hunting for Chantbreaker. Instead, she found the evil sister, Madrys, who deceived the queen into believing she was Chantbreaker. The queen was persuaded to give herself to Madrys' power to protect her son, the heir, and counter Cylla's enchantments upon her husband the king.

"Madrys used the queen to lure Chantbreaker. The spellbound Queen of Woebolin sent dark armies into Rhomaag to make war. Seeing Madrys' power increase, Cylla answered with her own dark forces. Chantbreaker came to stop the sisters' darkness from spreading over the land.

"The three sisters fought in the Battle of the Mists, but their power could not singly overcome the others. So Madrys and Cylla united their enchantments to trap Chantbreaker. They used Draill Arund to perform this deed. Cylla gave him power to take on Chantbreaker, an immortal strength. Madrys fettered him with the power to resurrect the dead. It was the Gobboling King who captured Chantbreaker, and it is he alone who must loose her. Draill Arund knew where Chantbreaker was imprisoned, and he was killed by a knight of Rhomaag in the battle."

I questioned, "Are you certain Chantbreaker has the power to break her sisters' enchantments?"

"It is Chantbreaker's power that keeps Cylla from escaping the sea, and Madrys cannot go beyond Draillen Wood."

"And Comfort," I asked, "What has she told you of Chantbreaker?"

"There are things she can't speak of. She tries to lead me to understand in other ways."

"What other ways?"

"Through the dreams. She is held somehow by the sisters, I believe. She cannot tell me how to conquer them."

I gasped. "Perhaps she could tell _me_!"

Draill nodded. "I think this is what she means to do."

I grew thoughtful again. "Do you think that is why she wants me to stay?"

"It's more than that!" he argued, growing impatient. "For you to know what she would tell, you would have to vow fidelity to the house of Draill."

"Fidelity?" I looked at him distrustfully.

"You must perform an act of utmost loyalty to me."

I exhaled, disappointed. "I cannot." As Lesander's heir, I served my king and eschewed the ways of darkness! To vow fidelity to the house of Draill was to deny loyalty to my father's house.

"After all," I told him, "You believe finding Chantbreaker is impossible." It seemed necessary to remind him that I wasn't the only one to blame.

When he did not respond, I knew we were at an impasse. Comfort meant for me to express my loyalty by being bound to him forever!

I sighed again and stood. Cylla was still jabbering in my ears. I had learned that her voice was loudest near the lone turret, the servant's quarters, where Draill had advised me not to venture on that first night in the castle so long ago. I thought if I went to the gardens distant, Cylla's voice would not reach my ears so easily.

"Loyal or not, you could still be bound to me."

I froze in my steps at Draill's words. I did not turn to him. I could see out of the corner of my eye he studied my face for my response. And I could not look at him. Did he mean to touch me against my will?

He got up from the rock. I steeled myself for his approach and faced him intently. His eyes searched mine as he stood before me.

"You will not touch me," I whispered hoarsely, determined.

"I will not?" he rejoined. "How will you stop me?"

I said not a word, thinking perhaps he would come to his senses if I did not challenge him. There was no use in reminding him of his own self-imposed avowals. I had only one weapon, the secret of my descent from Lesander, his enemy. Bound to his enemy! How would he like that if he knew? I had no assurance that it would sway him _not_ to use his touch, but I would tell him if it could possibly save me.

"For all of your helplessness and inability to fend for yourself, I do believe you would stop me," he said quietly. "There is something markedly adamant at your core, Lady Esda. Comfort might have given you the means to use it against me if you were not accepting of my touch."

I remained guarded, fixed on his movements after he'd finished speaking.

"Do you think you could love me, Esda?"

The question caught me unawares, but I recovered quickly. His question was calculated to test me. Certainly, he could not expect one to love him when he was so sure he could never return that love!

I found my voice, lifted my chin, and stated coolly, "I have never thought of such a thing, Draill Adrun. That is the truth of it."

"I knew you would speak truth. I, too, will be truthful: You are a conceited child, and a spoiled one. I have my doubts that Comfort understands these things, but I grow impatient with your affected manner."

Anger rose in me, but I bit my tongue and turned on my heel. For the first time I saw him as a man and not as the Gobboling King. And I found the man proud and bitter.

~0~

Three days passed, and I slept through the dream state all the day. Comfort came to me on the fourth day.

"You have disappointed me, Lesandra."

I understood then that she had been reproaching me with her silence those three days because of my desire to escape. I thought her reproach cruel.

"I have no reason to help Draill, Comfort. He does not want it, and I will not be bound to him and this enchantment."

"Then I cannot stop what will come upon you both," she answered. I surveyed her solemn expression, her clasped hands, as she stood at the foot of my bed.

"And what will come upon us?"

"His is the last generation of kings. With him the sisters will be freed."

"Then he will be free?"

"No. What binds him will remain with him, but what binds Cylla and Madrys will be loosed. They will destroy Chantbreaker, and nothing will prevent them from the evil they seek." She came round my bed and knelt, her hands folded in petition now. "Please, child. Listen to me. I can only protect you for a time before Cylla will overcome me."

I stared into her blue eyes, fringed in soft, white lashes. I saw fear in them.

"You must love him, Lesandra. Can you not see the man he is and fight for him?"

"You forget! There are a great many things he is that I am _not_!" I returned. "He is bound in dark ways. He is king of a land of enchantments and evil. I have vowed to have no alliance with these things!

"Furthermore, Comfort, I cannot love him. He is...he is cold. His despair, it frightens me. His fate frightens me!" I sat up stiffly. "And I have the blood of Lesander, Draill Arund's enemy, in my veins! When he knows this—"

"Tell him. Tell him who you are, Lesandra. Tell him your father killed his!"

"No! He will kill _me_!"

"Put yourself at his mercy."

I shook my head in astonishment. "You're mad!" I cried.

I heard the wings of the black bird as he landed on the parapet above my room. I rose up, skirting Comfort's kneeling figure, and left my closet. I went to the fountain to wash my face. Sunlight glinted in a strange fashion all around me. I stared at the tiles around the stones of the fountain. Everything shifted, like light through fragments of glass. I put my hands into the water, and it felt like wool beneath my fingers. I lifted my arms allowing it to drip from my hands.

_So this is what Draill meant_, I thought. I was in the dream state, aware but not awake.

I could feel Comfort standing behind me.

"Suppose I loved him," I mused aloud. "It would not be enough to convince me to be his captive queen! What would I gain from such a sacrifice?"

"I could tell you."

"Tell me what?"

"How to loose Chantbreaker."


	9. Silver Thread

**Part 2 of the double update.**

Chapter 9 – Silver Thread

I whirled round. "Why can you not tell me now?" I asked Comfort, frustrated by her attempts to lure me into binding myself forever to Draill Adrun.

She merely shook her head.

"Why can I not know now?" I pressed. Behind Comfort I saw Draill fly down from the roof. He flew into my room carrying a corn husk. He had brought me other husks, filled with nuts and vegetables that I might eat when I awoke.

"If you cannot love him, you are not ready to know what you must do to save him!" Her voice wavered with emotion that moved me with compassion for her.

"If only I could love him as you do, Comfort."

"Oh, my child," she said, smiling softly. "I know it is possible, but I cannot imagine how you could love him as I do."

I felt the lump rise in my throat at the thought of this spellbound woman and her devotion, a devotion I could not feel. I almost envied her.

Draill came to perch on the back stone of the fountain, overlooking us. My eyes went to the black bird, wondering what it was about the man that made Comfort love him so.

I thought to ask why she didn't bind herself to him as she wanted me to do, but I knew she couldn't. Her love was maternal. As a woman, I could sense this.

As I gazed up at the bird, I said to her, "You are asking me to love him more deeply than you do, Comfort. Don't you see that? I would have to give all!"

"And then you would know all."

The bird took to the air, and I replied, "I'm not that selfless, Comfort. In fact, I'm a spoiled, conceited child."

I plunged my hands into the water again and brought them up. It was a purifying act, as though I could wash off the guilt I felt at denying her. As it dripped like faceted jewels from my hands, the water seemed to stick and solidify. I rubbed my fingers against the silky strands as they stretched down to the water.

Comfort said, "A gift, child. Try again."

I heard an object ping against a shell lying next to the basin. There lay an ivory needle. I lifted the shimmering thread on my hands and turned around to question her, but Comfort was gone.

"Very well," I said aloud. "I will try again."

I went to the baths, found Draill's discarded shirt, and began to work. All the day, I mended. As I stitched, the tattered fabric began to shrink and the glittering thread grew. My fingers seemed to know what to do, weaving the shining threads, drawing the needle in and out, in and out. The shirt flashed like a coat of mail in the afternoon sun. The frayed edges became a solid, silver trim; the sleeves were identical, full and light. I turned my attention to his belt and finished it just as I awoke. I dropped the needle.

Looking down at the belt and shirt for Draill, it seemed to me the bright thread should vanish, like everything that had happened that day. But it was real. I knew my conversation with Comfort had been real. And now that I had returned to myself, I knew I couldn't sew a straight stitch. What an odd gift Comfort had given me for the day! Gingerly, I folded the shirt, leaving it on the warming rock. I returned to the queen's hall. On waking, my hunger returned. I searched for the husk Draill had left for me. It was buried in the warm ashes of my fire. I opened it and found the pieces of pumpkin and cracked nuts that had been cooking in the husk. The heart of the pumpkin was slightly firm and made very tasty by the flavor of the opened nuts. I had eaten most of it when Draill summoned me.

I followed his voice to the gardens.

"What is this?" he demanded, when I reached him. His brows were furrowed in anger.

He held up a torn piece of the sash from my cloak. I saw clearly my family crest sewn to it. I began to back away, thinking he must understand what that heraldry revealed. Now he knew who I was; and he would kill me, avenging Draill Arund's death!

"Comfort told me you were keeping something from me. She says this is a clue to what you conceal!"

I narrowed my eyes at the thought of what Comfort had done; but when he showed no recognition of Lesander's crest, I let go a breath in relief. "I will tell you nothing, Draill!" I snapped. "Comfort is trying me, and I won't be tried!" I surveyed the orchard, knowing she was invisible to me.

"Is this what you want? That we should fight, Comfort?" I cried to the sleeping trees, furious with her.

Of course, she did not answer. I did not wish for a response. I turned on my heel and went to my room. I intended to stay there the rest of the evening, telling myself that if Comfort told him all, I would know soon enough. He would make sure I suffered for my ancestor's valorous act.

'And it was valorous!' I told myself. Draill Arund had been a wicked, wicked king. He had deserved to die for the wrongs committed against Rhomaag.

My conscience whispered that I should have confessed all in the boat, when Draill had spoken of the Battle of the Mists. If I had been brave, none of Comfort's meddling would have mattered.

Something had changed for me, though. Through Comfort's eyes, I saw Draill differently. She had guarded him, protected him, brooding over his every move. I could feel her love for him, and it stirred something in me.

"But I will not be his," I said to myself. My eyes pooled with tears, and I squeezed my mother's pendant in my fist. "I will not."

"I have not asked you to be," he answered.

I turned to see him leaning against the entryway.

He sauntered into my closet. "You seem to think Comfort decides these things." He took my hand with his gloved one and placed the scrap of my sash in it.

"You need not spend the evening pitying yourself. I care not for your secrets." His eyes examined mine as he continued, "I gather you still wish to flee Draillen Wood."

To my shocked expression, he answered, "If it is your wish, then I will help you. Tomorrow. We must travel in daylight."

"Am I able to travel in the dream state?"

"Of course. Now that you are aware when you are in it," he answered. "Tomorrow I will come for you before sunrise, and we will cross to land. We should reach the forest border by midday. I would advise you seek the protection of Berlhart. If he is a cousin, he should be willing to back your claim to your inheritance."

"But he hasn't any reason to." I avoided his eyes, not telling him all I knew of Lord Hursey.

"Is he not the type to help his own family? Could you not reward him richly?"

I hesitated before shaking my head slowly. "I doubt he will be willing to defend my cause with Lady Orinda."

"Why is that?"

"Lady Orinda is his sister-in-law."

Draill quirked his lips. "They have you at all sides, it seems."

I fidgeted under his look.

"But never mind that. I have something that will put the fear in him. And, unless he wishes to hang himself, you will have his support." He caught her eye. "I will send something to him by you. You will deliver it?"

I smiled at him, elated. "Draill Adrun, if you let me go, I'll surely deliver it!"

He returned my smile. "We leave before sunrise."

"What about Comfort?" I asked.

"If you wish to have her blessing, it will not be forthcoming," he answered shortly. Later, he built up the fire in the hall, and I heard him pacing the tiles.

I stepped out after a time. I could not sleep. Sleep was for those not spellbound.

The torchlight across the bank reflected off the black sea like a sultry beacon.

He did not seem aware of me, so I raised my voice across the open hall, "What about Comfort's protection? Will I continue in her spell once I'm free of Draillen Wood?"

He seemed to come out of his thoughts gradually. "Hm? Oh. Comfort's spell only works within Draillen. You will return to yourself when you leave the forest."

I smiled, looking forward to the morrow.

Suddenly, he stopped pacing, surveying me intently. "I'm glad you are pleased," he said, and I realized he meant it.

My conscience pinched on hearing his sincere thought for me.

"I can't thank you enough. Truly, if I could..." I let the thought trail away because it was cruel to continue.

"It was never possible," he returned, his face empty of emotion.

The niggling feeling wouldn't let go of my heart. For the first time, I began to doubt whether I was making the right decision, but I persuaded myself it was just to realization of my imminent freedom causing me compunction.

"Besides," he said, as though his train of thought was the same as mine, "You will provide a good service for me in presenting a token to _Lord_ Hursey." I heard the mockery in his tone. "Why did you not tell me the whole about him and his deceit?" he questioned.

I hoped he could not see the warmth that stole over my face. "I—I have no proof that he deceived me."

"Really? That is your reasoning?" Draill asked. "Let me see: he marries a woman beneath him when he is practically betrothed to you…"

"We were never betrothed," I corrected him, crossing my arms in defense at his questioning.

"Well enough. But you were perfectly willing to marrying him at fourteen. He would have had your estate and his to do with as he pleased." He walked out of the hall and returned carrying a stack of wood, which he threw on the fire.

The flames leaped up and crackled between us.

"My estate was entailed to me from birth," I explained, continuing where he'd left off. "Though I probably would have signed it over to him naively at fourteen," I added.

"But not now," he said in a scoffing tone. "You're much older and wiser now. Your father's estate…passed down through the female line." He nodded to himself. "It is quite a rarity."

"It is because of my mother's inheritance."

"It gave you a say," he observed. "You are not homely by any means, so I must attribute his design in rejecting you to some other defect. Of character, no doubt. Willfulness, perhaps? Arrogance? He must have hated the thought of a woman of independent means lording it over him."

The subject was distasteful to me, and I told him so.

"Indeed," he remarked. "To be rejected by a man who wanted your wealth but not enough to woo you. Yes, that would be very distasteful."

I could not comprehend why he continued, knowing it offended me.

"I find your words quite unmanly," I said, hoping my remark would smart. His candidness had done nothing for my pride.

"And you, perhaps, consider yourself the quintessence of womanly charm and grace," he struck back.

I glared at him over the flames as they caught the larger pieces of wood on the pile. "How dare you speak to me so? You, a forgotten king of an island of...of rubbish!" I ended, remembering his words.

He set his jaw and straightened to his full height. By firelight I could see the smoldering look in his eye as he approached. I lifted my chin, ready to back my challenge and meet him eye to eye.

He took my neck in his gloved hand, as though he would throttle me. But, instead, his fingers roughly slid up the line of my jaw, sending a repulsive shiver through me as his eyes bore into mine.

"For such a tiny little thing, you reek with pride." His face drew close to mine, and I realized the threat that loomed over me. I wanted to remind him of what he feared from Comfort, that she might have given me some means of protecting myself from not only his touch, but surely his kiss! I could feel his breath on my lips, and I thought of my dagger. I shifted my eyes away in desperation.

He let go of my face, but did not step away. Intimidated, I reached for my weapon, still unsure of his intent.

"If you draw your dagger on me, lass, I vow to you, you will not have it on your journey tomorrow."

"It seems to me I may not have a journey to make if I do not," I answered breathlessly. Though I tried, I could not suppress the violent shudder that ran through me.

"You will go tomorrow." He stepped away and returned to the fire.

I went to my closet both confused and angry. From my bed, I could see the fire in the hall. I watched him as he began to pace behind the flames. As my indignation settled, I began to reason through his words. His treatment had been disrespectful of my position, I thought. Then I began to question my own reasons for not telling him about Lord Hursey from the first. It was true I had not wanted to tell him because of the distasteful light it put me in. My pride would not allow me to speak of my disappointment until I felt forced to do so. I had never loved Hursey. I had never truly felt anything stronger than affection for any man. My pride alone smarted, and that, to me, was worse than anything.

'He is just as proud,' I argued. And why should I not be proud? I was, after all, the daughter of the Duke of Istledon, and had been so for seventeen years! I was not a child! I could make my own decisions about who I would marry! Even as I thought these things, I remembered that all had been stripped from me. My father, my title, my inheritance, my very way of life. I felt the twinges at the corners of my eyes and blinked the tears back as I comprehended my humbled state.

Determinedly, I got up and entered the hall again.

"You are right," I told him, stopping him in his paces once more. "I haven't any use for pride or conceit. And...and I shouldn't have ridiculed your position." I peered at him over the flames. "Enchanted or not, you are a king and my deliverer. My life is in your hands; and, once I leave Draillen, I have no one who will fight for me—willingly, at least."

The air seemed to go out of me then. To my horror, I burst into tears. Immediately, I quit to my room in shame. I had always hidden my tears, having been taught that tears were disgraceful, even as a child.

I thought he would have the decency to let me alone in my humiliation. When Draill's hand rested on my shoulder, I felt it most painfully. I wished he would go until he said, "Oh, milady. I regret every word. Forgive me. You spoke truth: it was quite unmanly of me."

I don't know how it was that I found myself in his arms in the next moment. My tears flowed, but my disgrace had changed to flighty joy! My head rested against his chest, my fingers clutching the shining, white shirt I had made for him, and I thought of how I might delay my escape for one day more.

"Do you think...?" I began, lifting my face to look up at him.

"What?" he questioned gently. "Do I think what?"

I shook the thought away. I had to go from the terrible enchantment of Draillen Wood. As lovely and freeing as that embrace was to me, I could not fathom staying. So I quickly amended, "Do you think Berlhart will listen?"

I saw the light leave his eyes. I felt the ache in my chest at his disappointment, but I could not bring myself to explore the feelings waking in me.

"Of course," he said. "Now goodnight." He left, and I sank down on my bed, flustered but strangely calm. Later, I could see him pacing before the fire again. I lay down and pretended to sleep. There were times when he stopped, and I could see him turn his head toward my closet. Then he would return to his pacing.

I know if he had come to me and told me he loved me, I would have accepted his touch. Subject to feelings that were new and untried, I would have faltered in a moment of overwhelming emotion. I would have found myself bound to the Gobboling King forever.

* * *

Thanks for your patience with me, readers!

Quiet Mindreader: The reason the dagger glows will become clearer. You have the idea, though. Yes, the boulder was dropped by gobbolings. (There wasn't really a way to explain that, so I was going to leave it to the reader to decide. But there it is.) Yes, when it comes to the gobbolings, Madrys is very helpful. :/ I think the rest of your questions will be answered as the story progresses. It's a highlight to my week to read your review, though I know life can get hectic! Thanks so much.


	10. Threat of War

Chapter 10 – Threat of War

Before sunrise we boarded the boat. We wended northwestward, slipping under cover of the brush. Once we reached the bank, he slipped a circle of knotted twine over my head. On my breast rested a small bronze box.

"Present these to Lord Hursey," Draill said.

I opened it and found a signet ring with Berlhart's crest and a piece of folded parchment.

"Why do you have my cousin's heraldry?" I asked.

"It is Woebelin's crest. The king's seat was at Berlhart Castle long ago. The steward of Berlhart gave his allegiance to the king of Rhomaag to keep his own head after the Battle of the Mists.

I unfolded the parchment to find a symbol traced in dark ink that I was certain was blood. My eyes met his.

"Is this...?"

"The Gobboling King declares war on Berlhart Castle. The same message will be delivered to King Thadus by bird today." His eyebrow lifted slightly, for he would be the bird to deliver it.

"You shouldn't jest about such things!"

"I am going to reclaim Berlhart, milady. It is no jest."

"But you haven't any army!" I exclaimed, unconvinced of anything so dreadful as war upon Torromaag.

He grimaced. "I am king of the gobbolings. My army marches when I summon them."

Seeing he was in earnest, his gobboling armies came to mind. I suppressed a shudder and cried, "But you can't threaten war with Torromaag! My-the people think you are but a myth!"

Draill's back stiffened at my reproofs.

I returned the seal and the note to the box and lifted the twine to remove it from my neck. "I will not deliver this."

"You must, if you want your people to prepare for what is coming." He took the bronze box in his gloved hand that I might not remove it. The twine pulled at my neck, drawing me toward him. "I have spoken to Comfort. She says the end is come. I am the last, Esda. I will take back my rightful castle. No steward will continue to dwell there as usurper."

He cupped my shoulder. "You must deliver my message that your cousin may prepare for battle." He pressed coins into my palm. "Fare to Berlhart," he explained. "That you may go quickly." He gestured toward my dagger. "Now prepare yourself for sunrise. Comfort will not make this easy."

My hand moved to my side. I felt desperate to stop what he was threatening on Torromaag. If I delivered his declaration of war, I could be imprisoned for treason! It flashed through my mind that I might stop him, but I could as soon kill Draill as draw my blade on myself. My choice was Draill or Torromaag, and I chose Draill readily. The future, bleakly laid forth, promised an attack on Torromaag one way or the other. It would come soon enough by way of the sisters, Cylla and Madrys, if the Gobboling King did not succeed in defeating them.

"Surely you would not loose the gobbolings, Draill!" I turned to find he had stepped away as the early rays of light crept into the sky. I was torn by his decision to make war on my homeland. I doubted my cousin's right to Berlhart, but Draill's possession of Berlhart Castle had been forfeited for generations. Time had erased the king of Woebolin's claim.

As the morning woke, my limbs became lighter, freer. The trees around me glittered, a beautiful attestation that I had entered my dream state. Moments later, I saw Draill wing toward the horizon. He remained with me, above the trees or waiting in the branches ahead. We cut through the forest until we came upon a rock lodged between two tree trunks, once the head of a gobboling. I thought about this spellbound king who had stayed by me when I'd broken my ankle. What a nuisance I must have been, not paying any heed to him as he'd tried to direct me through Draillen Wood before nightfall. Why had he rescued me at all?

I stopped and searched the trees for him. I found the dark bird perched just above me, silent and wary. Something washed over me at the sight of my protector. I told myself I was relieved to see him, but there was something more. Emotion overwhelmed me at the thought of the man I'd watched pace the hall the night before, and I realized I would not see him again, unless it was in battle.

I suppose my sorrow crept into my face because, seconds later, he landed on my shoulder. I stiffened, knowing the razor-sharpness of his talons, but he perched there with a gentleness and grace borne of practice and skill. I felt that, somehow, he wished to assure me.

A great-winged falcon from the east gave a predator's cry and dove through the trees. Draill swooped in sharply to meet the enemy. The falcon was only a distraction. From the west came a white blur hurling toward me. I threw myself behind a tree as it charged past. The creature slowed and turned. I knew it was Comfort, but she had not her bear shape. She was as large as an elephant with a great tusk protruding from her face and legs as thick as tree trunks. I had never seen such a creature before! The ground began to shake as the white monster picked up speed to charge me again.

This time Draill intervened, his wings stretched wide. Veiling me from my attacker, he was poised to take the oncoming blow of the tusked monster. The creature couldn't stop. The animal suddenly broke into a thousand-thousand splinters, becoming a horde of noisy white insects. They buzzed past my protector and enclosed round me. Their stingers jabbed my arms and face. Their poison burned through my veins, as Draill attacked the mass of Comfort's white insects. He landed beside me, where I'd sunk to the forest floor. I rubbed my stinging arms and cheeks. The burning lasted only a short time before it began to subside. I blinked and realized I was awake.

"I'm no longer under her spell," I told Draill. I thought it a good thing, but it was not.

We trekked only a short distance through the forest before the terrain began to change. The muddy pools gathered. I looked right and left, while Draill flapped his wings to gain my attention. I knew I must concentrate on reaching freedom, that I could not allow distraction to tempt me from my goal. But I was afraid. I was unprotected by Comfort's spell, and Madrys was coming for me.

The ground grew soft to my step; and I kept my eyes to the ground, making it difficult to follow Draill the bird. Madrys must have known this, for I looked up and saw two identical black birds! One was perched on a bough, mirroring the other on a lower branch opposite. I halted and looked to both of them, unsure which was my true guide. They faced each other as the bog grew at my feet.

Suddenly, one bird flew at the other and sunk its talons in. The second bird fell away, dropping to the mire in globs of mud. Draill swooped round and flew ahead of me. I hurried to follow.

Madrys rose from the bog and shadowed me. Each time Draill attacked her, she fell as mud into the mire, rising up again, closer and closer.

I drew out my dagger to protect myself, my boots sinking into the swampy path.

"Stay back!" I cried.

"Anba!" screamed Madrys, just before Draill struck her in the face with his claws.

The mire pulled at my feet, but I ran as quickly as I could to get away.

"You cannot escape!" She rose from the mire beside me and reached out her remaining hand toward me. I slashed at her face with my glowing dagger. The side of her face fell away, ashen, as she screamed and dropped to the mud in defeat.

I tore through the mire, following Draill's flight ahead. I was out of breath, but I kept running until I reached a patch of dry land. At the bank of Madrys' bog, I found my surroundings unfamiliar. Breathless, I sought Draill. The ruby in my dagger glowed like a flame. I knew now it meant my enemy was close.

The mire washed over my boots and reached to my calves. In a flash, my feet were swept from under me. The bog woman drew herself up over my prone body, my back sunk in the mud. Part of her face was missing as she fixed her dark, cruel eyes on me, dripping mud on my cheeks.

"Anba," she whispered. "You will not get away this time!"

Her one hand took hold of my wrist, the one holding the dagger. I answered by thrusting it at her neck.

Her horrible scream was cut short, for her head turned to ash and she fell apart. There was mud all over me as I got to my feet; and, clutching my weapon, I ran. When I looked back, Draill was between me and the place where Madrys had fallen, urging me forward.

We broke through the spell of the forest. I knew it because the air changed. I breathed in the crisp freedom and looked for Draill. He sat on a branch above.

"Thank you," I said, still trying to catch my breath. I gripped the bronze pendant at my neck, covered in mud as was I, and pleaded, "Will you not change your mind?"

The bird flew away, and I knew as though he had said it that he was decided.

Now I will tell you the truth of my cowardice. The further I went from Draillen Wood, the more I began to persuade myself that I should not go to Berlhart and deliver the Gobboling King's message of war. First, I told myself that I would be imprisoned before I was granted an interview with my cousin Hursey. His wife, my stepmother's sister, would see to that. Then I persuaded myself that, if he believed me, he would claim I had committed treason; for I would be viewed as the instigator of a war, a terrible war of gobboling armies and men! It occurred to me that had I never met the Gobboling King, he would not have learned of my connection to Berlhart Castle and would not have decided to provoke the king of Torromaag with the threat of war.

When I reached the town of Narrowmead, I was hungry. I told myself that I must use the coins Draill had given me to get me meat instead of passage to Berlhart. It was mid-afternoon when I passed into Narrowmead at the public gate. As I pondered what I would do, the great, black bird cast its shadow over me on his way north. It was evident Draill had been keeping watch over me to see that I reached the town safely.

I knew then that I could not betray Draill, as I would easy have done if the task had required courage alone. But I was beholden to the Gobboling King. And he was my friend, though I could not understand his reasons for threatening to march on Berlhart after such a length of years. What had Comfort meant, telling him the end was come? If the Gobboling King rose up to battle Torromaag, all would fear him. They did not know him as I did. I knew the man he really was. It was this that led me to keep my word to him, though I did not agree with his declaration.

"I _must_ warn Hursey," I said to myself and clutched the box at my neck, hidden beneath my filthy tunic. Realizing the state I was in, I used my dagger to crop my hair, hopeful that I might pass for a boy. It was almost nightfall when I finally found a coach willing to take a boy dressed as a pauper-turned-thief to Siseby in the province of Berlhart Castle.

I slept in the coach, and, when I awoke, it was still dark. We had stopped only once through the night. Now the only passenger who remained in the carriage was an old woman I assumed had boarded at Rimsdale.

"You are in a troubled state, miss," she observed. She was dressed in an overlarge cloak and one of her eyes was misted with blindness.

Seeing my disguise was so easily seen through, I decided to be forthright with this solitary passenger.

"Am I, mum." I responded coolly, looking hard at her by the light of the lantern that bounced outside the window of the carriage. She leaned in, eager for me to study her. She was bald but for hoary tufts of hair framing her head. Her face was quite wrinkled; and she was toothless, judging from her protruding chin. She could only squint at me with one blue eye, the other clouded over. I thought it strange someone with so little sight had noticed so much about me.

"You are very skilled in observation," I remarked.

"It is my duty to observe, or many lives will suffer," she answered. "I think you suffer from an ailment for which there is no balm."

"I should wish for a salve," I said musingly, "that would turn a timid heart into one of valor."

"For that, miss, I have no receipt," she answered, shaking her head sadly. "But there are many potions and salves that do nothing at all. Perhaps what you need you possess even now."

"Perhaps," I agreed, unconvinced. I had decided the old woman was addled but harmless.

She spoke hoarsely over the rattle of the carriage. "Perhaps it is something you possess, like a power bottled up. Like magic!"

"Magic does not come in a bottle, old mother," I responded shortly.

She sat back, studying my face. "I knew of a man who went after enchantments. He spoke of it in ways no man should. Some thought him quite mad."

"And did you think him mad?" I asked, willing to humor this talkative companion to while away my journey.

"I thought him dangerous." The old woman labored for breath and continued, "You see, he was powerful and had a great many possessions. But he lacked one thing."

"What was that?"

"Honor."

I began to grow uncomfortable with this talk. The solemn way the woman spoke made me think she was telling it for my benefit.

"He had many subjects. His armies were innumerable. But he feared it would all be taken from him." She paused for more air and added, "He wanted incredible power. He gave up all to possess one thing that would give him this power."

As she stopped to regain her breath again, I prompted, "What was it he wished to possess?"

"A dagger. A fine dagger encrusted with emeralds and diamonds."

"A dagger?" I clutched my father's weapon in the darkness, tucked in the folds of my breeches. My heart began to thump loudly in my chest.

"In the center was a great ruby!"

My heart dropped at her description, and I was silent.

"It had the ability to crush his kingdom. And do you know what happened, miss?" asked she, when I did not speak.

"How could I, old mother?" There was a tinge of panic in my voice that I could not quell. I began to think she was a thief.

"The power he coveted was used against him!" The old woman slapped her hands upon her cloak and wheezed to gain breath. "He gave up everything for that dagger, and it killed him.

"Of course," she went on, "the one who defeated him was given it as a token of his deed, his _victory_."

She labored to speak every word, but when she pronounced the last, I looked up.

"The victor never knew the power that lay in the dagger."

I mouthed the word power, as she leaned toward me again, her aged hands shaking as she reached out. I took her hands with a sudden realization of who she was!

"Comfort?"

"Do you know of that power, Lesandra?"

I stared at her, this frail woman whose hands I could touch and cradle for the first time.

"Do you know what is at your side?" she pressed.

"Anba," I said. The truth came to me with the memory of Madrys' cold eyes.

"Yes, Anba, known as Chantbreaker. You must free her. Free her, and cast out the darkness, as you vowed to do when your father gave her to you."

She continued to speak in a whisper, and I had to lean in to hear her. "It is your victory, Lesandra. You must save Adrun! The sisters' darkness must not overcome!"

"How?"

The horses began to slow, and the driver announced the town. I helped Comfort descend, and the coach moved on. We faced the closed gates of Siseby, and the road to Berlhart Castle.

"You must go to the old chapel at the wall of Berlhart. Seek my resting place. There you will find the token of _my_ vow, Lesandra. Hurry, before Cylla is released!"

She hunched forward and tottered, and I clung to her.

"Promise me."

"Of course, Comfort. I am going to Berlhart. I'll find it. But come. Lie down, dear. You are tired." I knelt with her in the grass at the crossroads and placed her head in my lap.

"I have been tired for more than a century, child. But he has finally given his ring. To you, Lesandra," she whispered. Her voice was so weak I strained to understand her.

I wanted to argue with her that Draill's ring was merely the proof of my message to Lord Hursey; but as I looked into her face, I saw the skin had become transparent. She was aging before my eyes!

"Comfort!"

"I am dying." There was quiet joy in her voice. She lifted her hand to cup my face, and I could see the bones beneath her skin. "Hope rests in you, Lesandra. I am vow-keeper and comfort no longer."

"Oh, Comfort! Don't! I need you! I don't know what I am to do to free Anba!"

"Give…your heart."

"What do you mean, "give my heart?" Do you mean to give it to Draill?"

"Love...him..." she whispered brokenly, searching my face with her one seeing eye.

"Love him?" I repeated. "Oh, Comfort. I—I think I do!"

I saw the peace that spread over her face at my revelation. Tears pooled in her good eye. She opened her mouth to say more, I thought, but exhaled gently instead. Her hand fell from my cheek.

I caught it and clutched it to my breast. "Comfort! No!" I shook my head, my tears falling to her lifeless lips. "Darling Comfort! No! You haven't told me what to do!"

Her body crumpled in my arms while I sobbed and begged her to come back to me. She had not told me how to free Anba and help Draill!

I looked toward the road to Berlhart and was torn. I wanted to go to Draill, for he was without Comfort. 'He will know by morning,' I thought, realizing he could not fly freely now. His bird form had been Comfort's gift to him. Without it he could not leave the wood.

But I had to find the token of Comfort's vow in the chapel at Berlhart. I knelt again beside the corpse that was little more than bones. Time was rapidly destroying the mortal remains of Comfort's long life.

"I will find the answer. I will save him! Comfort, I _do_ love him!"


	11. Castle Berlhart

Chapter 11 – Castle Berlhart

I trekked the road to Berlhart until a farmer took pity and let me ride to the gate of the castle. To my surprise, he brought no attention to me at the guarded gate. I entered Berlhart that morning a farmer's child on market day.

"There now, lass. I've done a good deed and kept you from any ill-mannered guardsman you might have had to bribe to be granted entrance."

I tried to thank him for this unexpected favor, for he had not been fooled into believing me a boy by my cropped hair and breeches. He waved me away, telling me, "No young girl should be left to journey alone. You find your cousin, and tell him you need watching over." He shook his head at the thought of the portion of my story which I had told him, and that I had traveled without protection. I thanked him again and wandered into the marketplace.

Now that I was within Lord Hursey's stronghold, my courage faltered. I stood among the the booths and looked down at my grimy tunic, breeches, and boots. I had a plan, but there was no surety it would prove successful. What if I were thrown out before I had a chance to deliver Draill's message?

The bells rang out the midday, and I surveyed the church. It was a newer building, so I scanned the castle walls—what I could see of them. I caught sight of an old chapel at the wall on the east wing off the great hall. Creepers had overgrown it. To enter that chapel, I knew I must face the court guard.

I ascended the steps that led to the great hall, the court of milord Hursey, the Earl of Berlhart. Men, mostly dressed in finery, met me with looks of disgust and astonishment as I passed. I thought about my short hair and filthy appearance, knowing they knew I was no boy, as I'd hoped to pass for.

I addressed the armed guard at attention before the doors of the great hall. I had already decided what my introduction would be, so I recited it: "Sirs, I am come with a message from the king of Woebolin. I carry this token as proof." Briefly, I flashed Draill's signet ring for them to see. "Tell Lord Hursey a lady wishes to be presented to him immediately."

Of course, they did not. At the mention of the word "lady," they glowered at me. Yet, I watched their eyes travel to the bronze box and gold chain and pendent I had drawn from my tunic before approaching. I knew my mother's pendant and Draill's bulky locket would at least persuade them I had some means. Stepping away, they consulted with one another, continuing to give me hard looks, until it was finally decided that his lordship's seneschal should be sent for, the man I knew would recognize me immediately.

Gates, Berlhart's steward, was brought from the great house. I could tell by his gait he had every intention of putting me in irons, for a woman dressed as a man was enough of an abomination.

I lifted my chin and greeted him, "William Gates, do you know me?"

For a moment he spoke not a word, his mouth hanging open in astonishment. Then he bowed.

"My—milady Lesandra. I..." He lifted his arms in a shrug. "I hardly knew you." He escorted me across the bailie to my cousin's residence.

"My apologies for your rude reception," he said, as he led me up the stairs to the living quarters. Gates had not questioned my apparel, which told me he knew something of my plight at Nouffrey.

"At present I would expect no other," I condescended. "You know of the deception of my stepmother?"

"She is here, milady."

"Here?" My heart froze at this news, but I rallied quickly. "I have come with a message from the king of Woebelin."

I saw out of the corner of my eye the quizzical look he gave. "Your pardon, milady, but who is the king of Woebelin?"

"I have been his guest since my...exile," I explained, thinking it better to leave the answer of who the king was to be given in the presence of my cousin.

"And may I ask what this message is?"

"It is for milord Hursey."

I gave him no more answer, and he ushered me into the study. "Milord will be with you soon," he said and bowed to me to be dismissed.

"Will you not offer me drink while I wait?" I asked. "I must confess I am thirsty."

This gave him leave to question plainly my bedraggled state. "May I say, milady, I—I am shocked at finding you...so..." He took up a decanter from the table.

"Alive?" I unsheathed my dagger silently as he poured out and slipped behind him. Pressing the point of my dagger into his back, I commanded, "Summon Berlhart."

Gates did not hesitate. "Guard!" he demanded. One stationed outside the room looked in. "Tell Lord Hursey he is needed at once to see to a pressing matter."

"Here, sir?"

"Of course here! Call him out of court!" snapped Gates. I spoke not a word, but hid myself quite well behind the steward's abundant figure.

For a tense moment neither of us spoke. Then Gates, holding the goblet at his side, offered it to me. "Your drink, milady."

I was tempted to take it, but I could not. "I am no longer thirsty," I lied. "You may drink it."

"I will not drink in the presence of milady when she has no cup," he said.

"You need not stand on ceremony with me," I told him. "You will please remove your dagger and place it on the—,"

"Milady," he pleaded.

I dug my blade into his side between his vest and belt. "My life is in the balance, Gates. Do not think that I will spare yours."

Cautiously, he deposited the knife on the table. We remained there in silence for some time before Berlhart burst into the room.

"Gates, what have you called me out for, man?" He backed against the door as I came round the steward.

"Lady Lesandra!"

I pushed my prisoner to stand with his lord and slid my dagger behind my back under the tie in my breeches. "Indeed. I am come here with a message that war is declared on Berlhart."

My cousin stared at me, and then he laughed.

I placed the signet ring I held back inside the bronze box, took it from round my neck swiftly, and tossed it to Hursey. "Do you recognize this?"

When he saw the crest on the ring, he was at first mystified, but then the truth began to dawn. "How came you by this?" he demanded.

"From its owner, the king of Woebelin." I watched him open the parchment he'd taken from the box, and I asked, "Do you recognize the inscription?"

My cousin's face lost its color, and Gates took it up to study it.

I added, "News has reached King Thadus by now."

"This is the mark of the Gobboling King!" exclaimed Gates to his lord.

My cousin narrowed his eyes at me and shook his head. With a look of condescension, he averred, "It is impossible. There is no Gobboling King. This is out of your own head, my girl."

"No, milord. What is impossible is your complicity in my stepmother's schemes!" I glared and gripped my dagger behind me. "Not one untruth have I told to you. Look at that seal and tell me it is a lie. Tell His Majesty it is lie when gobboling armies march on Berlhart Castle." I waited calmly for my news to settle before I took a step toward Hursey. "Now that you understand, I am come as your only warning. You must prepare your forces and fortify the castle. For, if the king does send you aid, I fear it will come too late."

"Your wish is my command, milady," he said quietly and bowed slightly. Then he spun on his heel to leave.

"Wait," I called to him, "Prepare the old chapel for your cousin. I will remain there tonight...to pray for peace."

Both men knew full well I was claiming sanctuary.

"Shall I have someone escort you there, milady?" asked Gates. I saw a look of surprise flit across my cousin's face, and I realized that, either by mistake or design, Gates had offered me protection to the chapel.

"Yes, Gates. There is a family priest?"

"Of course, milady."

"You may send for his men to escort me."

Gates bowed and left the room.

I faced my cousin.

"Antony, I have known you all my life. I know not why you've worked against me this way, but I take no delight in bringing news of war."

"Milady, I doubt a war will follow," he replied. And then I knew he did not take my warning seriously at all. "And you are mistaken in suspecting me of complicity. You insult me by this...display." He gestured at my state of dress and ended by shaking his head at me in reproach. Then he smiled politely. "I will see that your needs are seen to immediately. Now, I must excuse myself and return to the business of Berlhart."

"Milord," I said, tapping the table. "The locket and the ring, if you please." I had decided, long before entering the city that I would not be parted from Draill's ring or any treasure of his. I doubted Draill knew the ring had been the means of freeing Comfort, else he would not have given it to me so easily.

Lord Antony hesitated but finally relinquished them.

"I was astonished," I said, taking up Draill's possessions from the table, "to see the heraldry is almost identical to Berlhart's."

This time his face flushed crimson. "I assure you, I know nothing of that."

"Of course. It was many years before your time...how that came to be," I told him.

He left me then, and the door of my chamber he left ajar. I was now alone and unprotected, but for my dagger and Gates'.

No one came into the room while I waited for the priest's escort. Two of his knights arrived to lead me to the chapel with no further event. After I knelt for prayers, I was taken to a small antechamber, where a maidservant was given me to see to my needs and food was set for me.

The maid washed and dressed me in the gown of a penitent, a garment hardly more respectable than the man's breeches in which I had arrived. Upon seeing my hesitation to partake, she offered to taste the food so I would know it was not poisoned. In this way she assured me, and I was able to take nourishment.

The chamber was a veiled room off of the old chapel where, once, the priest would have prepared himself before serving the family. There was a bench against a wall and a fireplace. Above a small wash basin brought in for me, a hide of Latin script was nailed below a pewter cross that hung in the corner. These were the only furnishings in the room. The family of Berlhart no longer used this chapel, preferring the newer, I imagined.

In the time I was changing, I assume Bishop Petrus, the family priest, was told my identity; for he chose to hear my prayers himself. Seeing he gave me favor, I asked him if I might tour the family crypt below the chapel. He granted my request readily, appointing his own manservant to guide me and my maid to the tombs.

I found naught but my cousin's kin there. When I asked to see the older _confessiones_, I was told there were none.

I searched the underground room again, my eyes growing weary of studying the dusty blocks of stone. My stomach full, I truly wished for sleep. I persisted for a time, but found no trace of Comfort's burial place. Truly, I had no way of finding it out. I had no knowledge of her name or position. I began to despair. I knew there was some clue I needed, but it seemed beyond my grasp.

We returned to the main floor, where I found a small couch had been brought into the chamber the bishop had granted me. I slept deeply. I should have left in the night. I should have started for Draillen immediately. I had no answers for Draill's enchantment; I knew only that I must return to him.

~0~

"Milady!"

I woke with a start at my maid's insistence and sat up gripping my dagger tightly.

"You are summoned."

"By whom? Antony?" I asked, not fully awake but aware of the seriousness of the summons.

"The bishop wishes you to attend him," she said. I made as though to go to him, when she detained me. "Here, milady. You will need to change into these."

By candlelight I saw I'd been granted more appropriate apparel. It was not the dress of my station—being merely the tunic, apron, and skirt of a villager—but it was more suitable than the humble penitent's gown.

The maid hurried to help me dress and led me by the light of the candle. To my dismay, there was no one about but the two of us. I was troubled all the more when I saw she led me to the stone arch at the steps of the crypt. When she halted, she told me, "I am not to accompany you further, milady." She curtsied and gave me the candle.

As I stepped down the narrow passage, the light wavered in my hand. I could not keep the warm pewter holder from slipping in my sweaty palm as I descended. I saw the priest by the light of his torch when I reached the base of the steps. His figure and head were completely shrouded in his cassock as he stood among the stone coffins.

"Who are you?" I demanded suspiciously, not daring to step into the room.

He pulled the cowl away to reveal himself as Berlhart's seneschal, William Gates! Gates pressed his finger to his lips in earnestness and came toward me.

"Hurry, milady. You are in danger and cannot afford another minute's delay," he whispered, taking my arm to lead me toward the center of the crypt, where he had been standing.

"Does the earl know of this kindness?" I asked, thinking that my cousin had some compassion on me in the face of my cruel stepmother.

"Milady," he said, picking up an iron bar at his feet, "It is a bad state milord is in. He is manipulated by two grasping women and hasn't the eyes to see it. I beg you to remember my kindness to you when you reclaim your inheritance." He jammed the bar into the ground and levered it, forcing back a stone in the floor of the crypt. Out of the blackness came a cloud of stagnant air.

I waited. "Will you not accompany me?"

He shook his head. "I must return to my room that no one will question my absence." He held out his hand to me, and I took it to step down into the dark chamber. "There is an old passage behind the tapestry. It will lead you to an unused conduit that goes under the castle wall. It may be blocked by stones, but it is no longer guarded." He took up a torch on the wall, lit it, and handed it to me. "I pray for your safe escape, for I believe we will soon know war with the Gobboling King."

"So, you know the truth of that ensign," I said, speaking of the parchment given to Lord Hursey.

His gray brows drew together. "Milady, it is no symbol that you would know. I saw it as a boy, more than fifty years ago. The detail is undeniable; it is the sign of the Gobboling King. King Thadus' advisors will know it well."

With torch in one hand and the candle in the other, I descended into the bowels of the castle, beneath the chapel crypt.

* * *

A/N: I'll be unplugged next Thursday for Thanksgiving and will resume posting in December. For those of you celebrating the holiday, don't forget to thank God for His goodness in your life! Have a happy Turkey Day!

coolcat12345: I definitely plan to give more detail about the sisters. It probably won't be in the next chapter, but it's coming soon. Thanks for the request!


	12. By Dagger's Glow

Chapter 12 – By Dagger's Glow

The stone door closed heavily above my head, snuffing out my weak candle as I stood in the chamber below the _confessiones_. The torch flame continued to burn, so that I knew there was oxygen present; and opposite the steps, I noted the torn tapestry that fluttered in the draft of air. Behind the thin, tattered material was a rounded hole in the stone, my tunnel of escape. I scanned the rest of the room, a crypt with one wing extending in a narrow hall strewn with broken slabs of coffins that had been smashed. I set the candle holder upon a coffin fragment at my feet. The object was not level, and the candle toppled. Hot wax dripped, outlining the symbol of a crown etched in the stone. I brought my torch close. Beneath the dust, I made out the word "Woebelin" in the archaic letters I had been taught in my studies as a child.

"Ah!" I exclaimed to the musty tomb. "Comfort, is it possible I will find your token?"

I had little time to search before the household would know I was gone. As I looked among the looted graves, it occurred to me that I might have discovered the only symbol of a crown in the whole room. All was but rubble! I stumbled over fragments, searching for Comfort's resting place. Once I'd gone the length of the long hall, I realized whatever I was looking for had very little chance of being found. If the token was in the crypt, it was buried beneath the broken stone, I deduced.

I had no time to scour the floor of the crypt. My cousin would know of my disappearance soon enough. Using the upturned corner of a casket, I hoisted myself into the tunnel. I could stand in it without hunching, and I would've hurried on, but a colored light brought me to a halt. The light was coming from my person. I uncovered the sheath of my dagger beneath my apron. The leather glowed like a fiery ember. When I pulled out the dagger, the glare of the red ruby's light filled the tunnel.

I'd seen it glow before, when there was danger near. Fear made my knees knock against each other as I looked down the dark tunnel, fully convinced that one of the sisters had followed me. I slipped back into the shelter of the crypt, where the light from my dagger shifted. Its bursting glow narrowed into a single, straight beam. I waved the dagger, determined to solve the mystery of the light's strange behavior. The weapon's ruby ray remained fixed on a spot at the back of the crypt. I climbed over a few of the large stone pieces and followed the light to a corner where the fragments were stacked upon one another. The beam banked off the wall and behind the stones, so I set my torch in a dusty iron socket in the wall and began to dig away at the rubble. My hand touched something stiff and whole. I took hold on it and pulled it out of its hiding place. It was a dark, folded scroll of preserved animal hide. The light from the ruby slowly faded. I tucked the script under my arm and took up my torch. I had no time to study it. I must be gone.

The dagger's light did not glow again in the tunnel. When I came nearer the tunnel's end, it was no simple thing to shift the rocks in the congested conduit under the castle gate to make an opening wide enough to pass through. Day had come by the time I squeezed through the passage and made my way out.

I was tired, hungry, scraped up, and my hands were bleeding. I was also fixed upon one task alone: to return to Draillen Wood as quickly as I could. I had nothing but my feet to perform this. I made my way to a farmhouse between Berlhart and Siseby and collapsed in an empty animal pin.

The wind was bitterly chill as I took up the missive I'd found in the tomb. Spreading it open, the leather broke away to dry dust. In the light of the morning sun, I traced the words written on strange, fibrous material, more like a soft leaf than animal hide. I could not imagine how this page had remained intact for so many generations. The gold seal, tacking the parchment to the vellum covering, had been broken off long ago, but the imprint of the seal was still visible. It displayed the royal heraldry of Woebolin, what I knew to be the arms of the house of Draill.

"_Rudan, Child of my Heart,_

_I have not abandoned You to your Father's delusions and the Enchantress. I am told there is a Sister who can conquer Cylla the Wicked. I go to her to plead my Cause, that I might Light your way in the Dark Days ahead._

_My dear Son, mine is of the deepest Love. As my kisses covered your Face in slumber this evening, know that I would cover You, shield You, with my Life. This is my Plea: that where once there was only Selfish Desire, there will be Unity._

_My Love, my Heart, You are the Crowned Prince of Woebolin, a Kingdom which is shrinking under your Father's rule. He is no longer a king, but a Tyrant. If I cannot loose the spell that blackens the King's Heart, I will beg for your Life. For, she cannot refuse my Life in exchange._

_Your sorrowful Mother,_

_Draill Donia di Syvene, Crowned Queen of Woebolin_

I read through the letter thrice, understanding a little more of the ancient script each time. The pain and love I'd seen in Comfort's eyes I now recalled. In my hands lay the promises of a desperate queen willing to give her life to save her son. As I wiped away the tears from my eyes, I realized that what Donia—Comfort—had written was still a mystery to me. I knew she spoke of finding Anba, the sister that could conquer Cylla. But Comfort had found Madrys instead. Madrys had tricked the queen. Her act of love had been reduced to a ploy to lure Anba.

I folded up the missive, which was so flimsy and thin I was able to press it into Draill's bronze pendant; and, taking up my dagger, I hurried on under cover of the woods bordering the King's Road. I felt a dread come over me that I would not reach Draillen Wood in time. The chill of frost was biting into my bones as the chill of doubt invaded my heart. What if Draill had already summoned his gobboling armies? Would it be the fall of Torromaag? Would it be the fall of Draill?

"Help me, Anba," I whispered to my dagger. You might think it strange that I spoke to Anba so directly, but if you had been present at the moment when the dagger had shown me Comfort's scroll, you would no longer have been in doubt of her presence. I knew I held Anba by my side. She had been with me all along!

I came to the Combbs, a river that ran through Rimsdale and out to the sea. I meant only to rest briefly and drink, but my limbs were tired and stiff. I pulled myself back to standing, but I could not keep up my pace. I had to cross a point close to the King's Road to continue on, and as I neared the road, a carriage rushed madly toward the bridge. I looked up, seeing it come to a halt so that the horses bucked. I was aware of my predicament when two men embarked from the carriage—one being the driver—and ran toward me on foot. I had no time to cross the river. I retreated to the forest but did not get far in my state. I was taken up and dragged to the coach. The door was flung open, and some object was tossed upon the ground. It rolled at my feet, and the memory of it will linger with me always. It was the head of William Gates.

"Disarm her and enter!" she cried, and I recognized my stepmother's voice.

Anba was taken from me. The bronze box was yanked from my neck and presented to my stepmother. My wrists were bound, and I was shoved into the carriage, where Lady Orinda waited. One of the men pushed me to a corner of the carriage and held my blade to my throat as the horses were spurred into action.

"You have no friends, Lesandra. Not Gates. No one. So, no more of these lies," my stepmother began, opening the pendant and placing the ring of the Woebolin King on her index finger. She opened Donia's folded letter and perused its print before tossing it aside to ask the guard beside me, "Are the ropes tight?"

"Yes, milady."

"Then let us speak, Lesandra of nowhere. You, my girl, are fatherless. You have no claim to the duchy. Berlhart Castle is allied with Istledon, and your cousin is my sister's husband. You have nothing!" She pinned her dull blue eyes on me, and I could see them narrow in the dimness of the carriage.

"Now then, it does you no good to play these games with _me_. So, tell me, who is this Gobboling King?"

It was then I perceived she was afraid! My stepmother, who had brought my father to an early death, saw that her plans would soon be brought to nothing by the war between Berlhart and Draill Adrun's army. When one province of a kingdom was affected, so were all. All troops from the neighboring estates would rally to protect the king's land and his honor.

"I have played no games," I answered her as calmly as I could, for Anba at my throat was no small threat. "The King of the Gobbolings wants what is his, and he will come for it with his army."

"When? When will he come, daughter?"

Mentally, I shook off the word 'daughter' with distaste, but answered, "I don't know. It must be soon."

She sat forward and struck my face hard. The fury that raged through me quickly subsided. I had no way to fight back.

"You are lying. I know it! You are in some league with this...this king! Tell me what he has promised you!"

"Nothing! He has promised me nothing! I didn't want this war, Lady Orinda!"

"But you have brought it on us because of your rebellion! Why did you not bow to your fate, daughter?"

I looked at her coolly. "This _is_ my fate, milady."

Again, she struck me.

"Enough! Answer me honestly, or you will be dashed from the cart!"

"I will answer you," I told her, stalling for time; for I knew her temper. She had no thought but for her own neck. "I will tell you what I know: I've seen the gobbolings. I've seen their twisted limbs and horrible grimaces. I've watched the Gobboling King summon them from their graves. They will come, Lady Orinda."

I was prepared for her hand this time. When the sting began to lessen on my sore cheek, she said, "You will die, you wretch."

"We shall all die, milady."

The driver gave a cry that the gates of Narrowmead were in view. Lady Orinda fell back into the shadows of the carriage and studied the bronze box Draill had given me. I watched her, but I could not perceive what she was planning.

When we disembarked in the town, the guard pocketed my dagger and took me to the inn. I was given a large cupboard into which the guard pushed me and locked the door.

There was no window, no means of escape. And I did not have Anba! As evening came, no food was brought to me. I sat in darkness through the night.

The next morning, the scent of breakfast downstairs wafted up to my cupboard. I felt I would go mad with the ache in my belly, having only sustained myself with the small supper in the chapel more than a day ago.

The guard came for me, and I was placed in the carriage with Lady Orinda, the dagger once more at my throat. We left Narrowmead and took the road toward Nouffrey.

_She's taking me to Istledon; but why?_ I thought. I dared not ask. I knew nothing good would come of it.

At the fork, where the Mistland forests touch the road, the driver cried out. The horses, already running at a break-neck pace, were pushed to the point that I thought the carriage would be shaken to pieces. Something hit the side of the coach, and the guard beside me looked out, only to receive a wooden spear shoved in his skull.

The carriage veered and toppled. We swerved into a ditch. Just before the carriage overturned, I caught sight of Anba, aglow. The dagger fell to the floor, and I threw myself forward to catch it up in my fist.

Lady Orinda screamed and kicked me away. I pushed open the coach door and tried to climb out, but quickly fell back when I saw what was upon us. At least a dozen gobbolings were on the horses, whose whinnies were quickly drowned out by Lady Orinda's screams.

"Shh!" I told her, putting my hand against her mouth.

But she cried out all the more, and then began to pummel me into the corner of the carriage with the block soles of her shoes. The breath was knocked out of me, as her shoe struck a blow to my ribs. In the next instant, the door to the carriage opened and a gobboling was upon her. It went for her neck. I heard it crack as her cry was silenced.

Another gobboling came through the door. I'm sure I had no strength of my own to lift the dagger and thrust it into the creature, but Anba stabbed and reduced it to ash instantly. The one that had attacked my stepmother was next. After the third, they did not venture into the carriage, though they eyed me hungrily, recognized the dagger's glow, and disappeared. I heard them eating on the horses for a time, then they moved on. I tried to raise myself out of the upturned carriage, but my side was on fire with pain. I could hear a sound like thunder. The tramping of armies marching.


	13. Stolen Kiss

Chapter 13 – Stolen Kiss

The carriage shook as the gobbolings passed. I could not breathe because of my bruised ribs, and a strange sleep crept over me. I dreamt of a golden fish weighted down by black waters. The fish fought against the heavy, tar-like currents until it began to sink. I saw its eyes as it ceased to fight. They were Draill's eyes, bright and full of fear.

And then I was in the field of flowers, their vibrant, yellow blooms crushed and matted on the ground. There was no sun in the sky. An icy wind froze me to my core.

"Esda!" I heard the boy's muffled cry on the wind.

"I am here, Draill!" I called to him. "Where are you?"

Snowdrifts began to spread, white as death, over the field. I ran, my 8-year-old legs knee-deep in the icy drifts, searching for the boy Draill. His cry came again, this time from below the snow. On my hands and knees I dug, calling to him to answer me. The snow grew up around me as I sank down, down into the pit I was making. At last my hand touched the stinging ice of the stream. Clearing the snow away, I saw his face was just beneath the surface, his eyes closed in sleepless repose.

"No!" I pounded my fist against the rock-hard ice. I beat at the frozen wall until it cracked and broke away; and, reaching into the icy water, I pulled out the unconscious boy.

"Wake, Draill! Breathe!" I pleaded as I dragged him from the stream onto the snow. I rubbed his hands, his face, but he remained motionless and cold.

I cupped his face in my small hand. "You cannot die, Draill! I'm here! I will save you!"

I touched his cold, blue lips with my own and gave him air to breathe. And when I lifted my face, he spoke to me.

"Esda," he said. The boy was gone. Lying in the snow in his place was Draill the man, his deep-set eyes darker and larger under the spread of his brow that belied the added score of years. He stared through me, his eyes haunted and brimming with fear. "Help me, Esda," he whispered.

I woke to the stillness of the carriage and its dead. Through the open door I could barely hear the distant march of the gobboling host, bound for Narrowmead. I tried to hoist myself out of the toppled coach, but my side was a vise of pain. I looked for some other means to escape the carriage. The other window rested flatly against the ground. I gathered up Draill's bronze pendant, which had been ripped from my stepmother's neck, and took his ring from her cold finger.

The dead guard hung from the window of the carriage. The spear had pinned his head outside the window so that he dangled, his legs and feet collapsed upon the seat opposite. I finally found the courage to use the body of the guard to escape the confines of that death box. The forest ahead was empty, though the ground had been trampled and upturned. It was many leagues to Draillen Wood, but I persevered, stiff in my side and laboring to breathe. If my visions were true, Draill was in danger.

It was night when I reached the edge of the forest. I knew because the ground grew wet with marsh as I stepped foot on Madrys' land. She wasted no time. She emerged from the mud, headless, her arms reaching out to me.

"Step aside," I said her. "You cannot stop me, Madrys." The moment I said the words, I realized the challenge I'd given.

The headless woman curled her one hand into a fist, and I shivered as the mud quaked at my feet.

"Let me pass, Madrys! I make no war with you today."

Stirred up, the watery mire rose to my legs.

"If you do not, you know what I will do." I drew Anba from my sheath, the ruby light aglow. I would reduce her yet again if she did not let me pass.

The dagger glowed, and the bronze pendant at my neck grew heavy. You cannot imagine my astonishment when my skirt and tunic burst into blue-white flames! The headless Madrys, her hand clutching her breast, fell to her knees. From the mire, the misshapen head of a gobboling rose. I was ready to drive it through, when it spoke.

"Anba!" it rasped. "Do not forget, my sister: I was not the one who thought to undo you. Anba, have pity! Much time has passed, and I would gladly make an alliance."

I felt no heat amidst that fiery enchantment. I felt only the force of the dagger, like the pull of a lodestone. I held on determinedly while the dagger danced in my hand, creating a red symbol in the darkness. It drew the seal of the Gobboling King.

"Take me to the Gobboling King!" I demanded through clinched teeth, for I could hardly handle the motions of the dagger.

The mud slid from under me, and I fell. Clutching Anba, which seemed verily to be stuck to my palm, I did not sink into the swampy water but was borne away. The flames around me created a barrier, a shield of fire between me and Madrys' deathly morass. The mud carried me only a short distance before the flames around me enclosed another. I saw Draill's body beneath the parting waves of the mire.

I turned him onto his back without comprehending what my eyes beheld. Was the Gobboling King dead, buried in the grave from which he had raised up so many horrible creatures? It could not be! Draill Adrun could not die the death of a mortal! I dropped to my knees and took his face in my palm as I had in my dream. Why did he not wake?

Madrys' headless form hovered nearby, skulking in the bog of decay. "What trick is this?" I demanded of her.

The mire bubbled up against the fiery shield, and the gobboling head rose again. In a gruesomely singsong attempt, the rotting mouth answered, "He thought he could fly, but his wings were gone." I looked to Madrys, her body shaking in spasms of laughter as she mocked.

I ground my teeth in anger. The blue, enveloping fire grew warm until flames burst out of the swamp, making a track upon the brown sludge toward Madrys. I saw her sink and rise, bobbing in the blue fire like a drowning figure, before I turned back to Draill. I felt the flames upon my fingertips as I touched his skin, still and paler than the flaxen strands against his forehead. The bronze box at my neck pulled me toward his chest, resting atop his heart as I leaned over him. I knew then what the dream had meant. I pressed my mouth upon his breathless lips, willing him to wake. The fire around us became a spiraling current, thundering and flashing. I had no fear for my own fate; I was too consumed with concern for his. He must arise! Oh, if he only would, I would never wish to be parted from him again!

I felt his lips move, and I pulled away to find his eyes searching mine.

His brow furrowed as the truth dawned. Confusion was replaced by sorrow-filled amazement. "Esda… What have you done?"

In answer I took his hand and brought his quickened palm to my cheek.

"I have returned to you, milord."

Around us the flames dispersed into blue vapor, and the ruby glow of my dagger shown round us like the light of a thousand colored stars.

"Have pity, Anba!" cried the gobboling head, its mouth surfacing beside us before it sunk into the bog for the last time. Madrys retreated, and we were left alone on solid ground.

I helped Draill to sitting. Truly, I could not take my eyes from his face, his radiant, living face! His thin, wide mouth hung open, his cleft chin relaxed, and his beautiful eyes were narrowed in wonder at me.

"I could not change to a bird," mumbled Draill. "The moon was gone, and I… She tricked me. She told me you had returned, and she would not free you." He looked down at his hands. "I thought it was you I held."

"She must have used you to release the gobbolings," I thought aloud. "They are marching on Torromaag. By now they have laid waste Narrowmead."

"We must return quickly."

"To the island?" I asked, surprised. "But the gobbolings!"

"I can do nothing to stop them. Not now. Madrys is not contained."

"Why? What has changed?"

"I know not. Comfort is gone from me, and I know not what has happened to her."

We were both on our feet when I espied torches in the wood.

"Can there be more Gobbolings? I thought they had all gone from this place!"

"There are always more where Madrys has need of them."

He took my hand, and we ran. I soon discovered the light of Anba deterred our foes from attacking. They waited at the edge of the wood, ever watching, ever following.

We reached the shore, and I heard the lap of the sea against the boat as we approached. By the light of the crescent moon reflected on the water, I saw Draill look back. He twined his fingers through mine, lifted my hand, and gently pressed his lips against my knuckles.

Gazing at me steadily, he admitted, "I have wanted to know your touch since I perceived the softness of your hands that first night on the hill. But I have only just remembered what will be your fate once you step foot on the island. You will never leave, lass."

"I know it," I told him, letting go of his hand. I went to the boat and stepped in. "It is for you I returned, and it is for you I will stay!"

He remained on the bank. "Esda, it is my own selfishness that bids me carry you to Castle Draill. And I cannot, for Cylla will conquer us both." He took me out of the boat and carried me back to the shore. Turning me toward the wood, he stood behind me and cupped my shoulders, speaking into my ear, "You have but one chance. You must escape Draillen Forest tonight!"

I held up my dagger, partly for light in the dark night and partly to warn the gobbolings that had crept nearer the boat.

My back against his chest, Draill pressed the side of his face to mine as if he did not wish to part from my touch, even for a moment. "You should not have returned," he said in a pained tone. "I don't know how to stop this war! Comfort has left me. I—I am lost!"

I could not bear his distress. I turned to face him, resting my hand on his shoulder. "I have come to help you, as Comfort asked me to do. Whatever becomes of Torromaag, it cannot be stopped now unless we stop the sisters."

"It may be too late," he said darkly. "Cylla's unrest grows by the hour."

"Then we must hurry."

But he did not venture toward the boat.

"Draill Adrun, I can only remain with you, for I have stolen your kiss!"

"Indeed, lass," he said gruffly. "You have played the thief oft enough, having stolen my heart, as well." Then he kissed me with a fire that glowed more intensely than the dagger light burned in my hand. I hardly knew when I was in the boat. I held tightly to him as he rowed across the lake to the ruined castle.

Only when we drew nearer Castle Draill did I fully wake to the danger I faced there.

"She is singing again," I said before we reached the island.

"You will not be safe unless you are fettered," he told me, bringing the boat to the opposite shore.

In the darkness I looked to him, declaring, "Draill, we will fight!"

I could not see his face in the shadow of the crumbling castle wall as he tenderly placed his hand against my cheek.

"Esda, I cannot save you from Cylla. I cannot save myself. You have given me your mortal life."

"Draill, nothing will separate us! 'Where once there was only Selfish Desire, there will be Unity,' I quoted. "We must act together!"

He held me to him that I would not fall victim to Cylla's song as we journeyed through the keep and out to the gardens. I needed to remain as far from Cylla's melody as the island allowed. I concentrated on Draill, the beat of his heart and the warmth of his arms around me. It was a trial, but I was determined I would not succumb.

We passed through the old orchard and entered a decrepit chapel situated close by the cliffs overlooking the sea. Directly I entered, I saw the iron chains wrapped around one of two stone pillars in the center of the hall. The chapel consisted of a single chamber and was barren of any altar or shrine. Grass spilled through the cracks in the stone floor. Along the walls, which lay in shadow, I could see faded patterns and scenes depicted with tiles that time had chipped away.

I shivered in the empty hall, and his arms tightened around me. He clung to me as I clung to him.

"Oh, Esda." I heard the dread in his tone. "I did not wish my immortality to be yours."

"But I wished it. Because I love you."

His heart pounded against my ear. I listened hard, hoping to drown out the sound of Cylla's song forever.

"I cannot do this…because I love _you_."

A lump rising in my throat prevented me from answering.

"We cannot change what will happen now, my love," he said. "If only I had found Chantbreaker when Madrys held me, buried."

"Oh, Draill! Comfort revealed Chantbreaker's whereabouts to me."

He let me go to study my face in astonishment. "When?"

"On the first night after you gave me your ring." I held up the bronze box hanging from my neck by the torn twine I had knotted. "The king's signet ring was the token of Draill Arund's vow. Comfort was released and became mortal. She told me the token of her vow was hidden in the tombs at Berlhardt, and I found it!" I opened the bronze pendant, taking from it the enchanted page. "Read it. It is her promise to her son."

As Draill opened it, I added, "Comfort was the queen—Donia, the wife of Arund."

"Donia... the queen of Woebolin?" he echoed, perusing the script. "But how could she be? The queen died at the hand of Madrys!"

"No. Her vow to save her son kept her alive, I think."

Comprehending what he read, he exclaimed, "This was the Draill Rudan who took his place as Gobboling King at the death of Arund his father! It makes sense! Comfort once told me she had been betrayed, but the enchantments used on her were not strong enough to destroy her heart. It was Madrys who betrayed her, and her love for her son kept her alive!"

"And bound to the Gobboling King," I finished.

"And she told you where to find Chantbreaker."

"Yes."

Screams exploded in my ears, screams to which Draill was deaf. I pressed my hands to my ears, groaning. Draill spoke, but I could not hear him.

"It's Cylla!" I cried. "She demands I come to her. She says she must speak to Anba!"

* * *

Queenofsneeks96: I meant to respond to your review after the last chapter, but it was all I could do to get that one posted. Sorry! I hope this chapter gave you a better idea of his age, along with a bit more description. You had some great questions, and I'm so glad you asked them! Please feel free to ask more. It helps me see what my story is missing.


	14. Blood Feud

(review online version and repost)

Chapter 14 – Blood Feud

Cylla's screams grew only shriller. Draill did not want me to go to her, but I begged him to let me confront her by the water. "I am protected, as long as I have Anba," I told him, unsheathing my dagger.

"Your blade?" he questioned. I judged he guessed its power then, for he relented.

When we came to the edge of the cliffs and the tumultuous waves below, I saw Cylla's glistening coils draped over the rocks. In the dimness of the moon, her faces rose out of the sea, their translucent eyes flashing the reflection of the moonlight upon the water. Draill held me tightly, pinning my body against his own that I would not cast myself over the cliff to go to her.

It took every ounce of my concentration to lift Anba up to view, the tears of pain rolling down my cheeks. The ruby's crimson glow spread around us, and the pendant at my neck grew heavy.

Cylla wailed, "Anba! At last!"

The voice, coming from the water, was provoking. My heartbeat roared in my ears, and my hand holding the dagger shook.

"Come to me, Anba. Let us see who is stronger!" she said, and I found myself pulled away from Draill. Even my heart was persuaded to question whether I might pass through those waters to her. Did not my dagger feel drawn to this end? Could not Anba prove herself stronger? Surely she had to be, else I had no hope of escaping Cylla.

"Esda, no!" I could hear hollowly Draill's insistent pleas.

"I must," I said to him. Bringing my dagger between us, I told him. "Anba will conquer her!"

Under Cylla's sway, I pointed the blade at his heart, demanding, "Release me! I must go to her."

When he did not, I struck at him. He deflected my attack, taking hold of my arm to defend against me, but not before I had pierced his shoulder. As I struggled with him on the cliff's edge, the blood from the scratch appeared through his shirt. A pale blue light encircled his figure, and I perceived vaguely the deception Cylla was using on my mind. My heart returned to me in that moment, and I exerted my will against her persuasions.

I must have fainted; for when next I woke, I was on my bed, which had been moved to the old chapel. Draill knelt next to my couch, asleep. His head rested against my side, his arm extended over me protectively. I saw the stain of blood were I had scratched him with my dagger when entranced in Cylla's song. Thankfully, her song had ceased, and the day had dawned.

I placed my hand gently on his golden hair, and he sprung up almost violently. Remembering his surroundings, his eyes softened, and he spoke sleepily, "Good morning."

I touched the strands of his pale hair, bringing my hand to his cheek. He laid his hand over mine and interlocked our fingers as they rested against his face, closing his eyes. With my free hand, I pressed my fingertips, one by one, along his jawline opposite our clasped hands, touching his lips with my thumb. He opened his eyes, and I saw that the tender light in them had fled. They were intense with desire.

"Esda, I have longed to kiss you as you slept, but I dared not wake you. You have been restless all the night. Cylla will give you little peace here."

He sat up, and I saw he held my dagger clutched in his other hand.

I tried to sit up and realized my leg was numb and sluggish. It was the weighted grip of the iron shackle around my ankle. I gasped in surprise and withdrew my hand from his.

"Oh, my love," he said, his eyes heavy with sorrow. "She held you in her trance, and I could not stop you from going to her without it." He dropped the dagger on my velvet bedding, lifted his hands in petition, and sued, "Forgive me; for I no longer have the strength to protect you from yourself."

Sorrow strove with elation within me. He must have seen the emotions that played upon my face, for he groaned and hid his face in his hands.

"Why did you not leave me to my doom, lass? It would have been better."

"It is a new morning," I whispered, lifting his hands to uncover his face. "Cylla does not sing to me." I placed my hand over his, holding his hand in both of mine. "And I have you to fight beside."

I kissed him dozens of times, clinging to him with all the joy which no words could describe. He began to caress my neck and arms. His touch was like a fiery current racing through me.

"I would give all for you, Draill Adrun," I whispered.

For a moment he gathered me to him, but, then, he pushed away from me suddenly. I saw the determination in the set of his jaw. "No. Cylla will not have you!" he declared. He stood, took up Anba from my couch, and strode toward the chapel entrance.

I tried to follow him, fearing what he might dare to do.

"Draill! What are you planning?" I struggled to stand, the heavy chain rolling unto the cracked stones and the iron links jangling with my every move.

"I will kill her!" he vowed.

My progress was slow as I followed him out of the chapel and through the gardens. The chain dragged behind me until I reached the fountain just outside the crumbling wall of the mezzanine. There I pulled my tether taut. It was as far as I could venture.

"You cannot kill her, Draill! You are mortal now."

He disappeared from view until he climbed onto the wall to sit, the place he had many times perched as a bird.

"What can you accomplish by challenging her?" I asked him.

"This Anba: Cylla wants it. Madrys asked it for mercy," he mused, holding up the dagger, its ruby flashing in the beam of the sun. I did not answer as he studied it. I could not bring myself to admit to him Comfort had not been able to tell me how to free Anba. I feared his anger would grow if he knew.

"Did Chantbreaker create a weapon to kill Cylla and Madrys?" he questioned. "And how came you to have it?"

I swallowed and told him the long-dreaded story. "It was my father's. It was passed down from his father, and his. Through many generations. Draill Adrun," I stepped sidewise that I might come as near to him as I could, the shackle round my slender ankle scraping the ground. "The dagger you hold is known as Lesander's Victory, used by him in the Battle of the Mists. It is Anba, and Anba is Chantbreaker."

He looked upon the dagger with awe until his countenance changed. His eyes slipped past Anba to me, and the hand holding the dagger shook. His eyes bored into mine. "You..."

"Yes, Adrun. My father and your father. Arund and Lesander. My given name is Lesandra. I am the namesake of Lesander of Torromaag, the man who defeated the king of Woebolin."

His stony expression turned incredulous. "You were _named_ for the man?"

My silence spoke for me.

"Lesandra." He tasted the name and shook his head, as though to forget. I heard my blade hit the tiles. He jumped down from the wall quickly and stormed to the fountain where I stood.

"You kept this from me! You knew we were blood enemies, and you kept it from me!"

"I did."

He turned on his heel and went back into the hall. I was able to see him enter my former closet.

"I thought you would kill me if you knew," I called to him.

He came out of the small chamber bearing his sword. "And you think I will not do so now?" He came toward me with wide strides.

"You will not," I answered quietly.

He lifted his sword and glared at me briefly before he slewed round and stormed away.

Adrun did not return. Later, I glimpsed him as he rowed to shore. You cannot know the fear I felt at being left alone. I was shackled and defenseless. My dagger was on the tiles, out of my reach. And the last time he had entered the wood, Madrys had somehow captured him. Could she not do it again?

I tried calling to Anba, my dagger lying on the tiles, but this did me no good.

Adrun returned that afternoon, bringing with him roots, berries, nuts, and wood for the fire. He brought these to me in the chapel.

"There is no meat," he said, "I've forgotten how to hunt as a man."

"I am grateful for this," I told him, thankful for his return more than anything. A few changes had occurred since I'd taken on immortality. It was strange for me to realize that my mortal body had been aware of every minute pang which ailed it. My mind had learned to endure and even ignore these signs. Hunger was not the same for me, either; and I wondered how I would fare if I gave it up.

Draill built up a fire between the columns of the chapel near my couch. I drew close, remembering warmth and the pleasure of heat. Outside, the icy wind threw itself against the stone structure and into the open entryway, which had no door. The snow was coming, and this would be my shelter. Always.

In his absence, I had wanted to regret my decision to be bound to Draill; but I could not. I loved him, even when he was infuriated with me for withholding the truth of my descent.

"You still think to defeat Cylla," he said blankly, stoking the fire after I had finished the small repast. He had eyed me steadily for some time, observing the way I avoided his gaze. Now, as he bent down to work, I glimpsed Anba under his belt.

"We must defeat her, Draill." My eyes went to his reproachfully as he stood. "You cannot refuse to let me fight."

"I will not stop you, Esda."

I looked into his face, attempting to measure his words by his expression. I saw nothing there that revealed what he was thinking. Would he release me? Would he allow Cylla to place me under her trance and lure me to her ?

"The forest is changing. Cylla's power grows. Madrys fears her now," he said quietly.

When he did not continue, I prompted, "That is all? And what of Comfort? Did she come to me for naught? We have Anba, Draill! We have a way!" Draill reached behind him and drew out the dagger.

I stretched out my hand to accept it, but he did not give it to me.

"What good is it to you now?"

"She is mine, Draill Adrun."

"Yours. Yes, with Draill Arund's blood on her. This stands between us," he said, placing the handle in my outstretched palm.

"No, it is doubt that has risen between us. I fear I have bound myself to one who thinks me the enemy."

The words pierced the evening and went unanswered.

Draill stood. "Goodnight, milady," he said.

"You are not dismissed!" I cried, standing up and feeling the weight of the chain that bound me.

By the light of the fire, I saw the rage in his face. "How dare you speak to me like a common servant!" His raised voice echoed in the stark chamber.

"I serve _you_, now! Do I not, Draill Adrun?" I lifted the chain resting on my couch, giving me reprieve from its weight. "I have given my freedom, and I am ready to give my life! I would have—"

"But Cylla won't take it."

I was silent, arrested by his certainty.

Draill stepped toward me. "It's Anba she wants. Anba. Not you."

"But Anba is mine!"

I know my voice shook as I spoke. I was suddenly aware of the possible futilely of my sacrifice. I did not know how to wield Anba against Cylla. And now Draill and I were of separate minds. I longed to return to that morning, to relish those few moments, the kisses and caresses, but I was glad to have told the truth.

"I am not ashamed of my heritage, nor of the valiant Lesander," I told him, perhaps more to assure myself than him.

He closed the gap between us in one stride and seized my shoulders to look me in the face. "Then why did you not speak, Esda? Why did you keep it from me?"

I felt my smallness then. He had the ability to shame me with his directness.

"I thought you would kill me," I said, repeating what I had told him that morning.

"If I had, would you have been any worse off than you are now?"

I studied his eyes, studied them with a woman's heart. "I would not have known your love."

He released me then and stepped away. The fire crackled behind me, and he stared over my shoulder into it.

His dark eyes glittered as he admitted, "All the day I have wanted to hate you. Lesander took the life of my father! He brought my house to worse than ruin!" He clenched his hands, lowered his eyes, and glowered at me.

I stepped toward him cautiously, the chain sliding through a patch of grass along the floor. "Draill…"

Before I could speak on, he'd left me.

The blaze warmed me little that evening as I took up my cloak and lay on my bed. I felt a chill that no fire could touch. I wished to have Draill's arms around me, but his heart was too far from me. I clasped the dagger in my hand and thought on his accusation, that Draill Arund's blood was on the blade. Anba clattered to the stone floor beside my couch. His father's blood ran through his veins, as my father's ran through mine.

A/N: This will be the last post for this year. I will resume posting in January, either on New Year's or the following Thursday. (I haven't decided. You might persuade me with a review or two…or fourteen. Heh.) I hope you all have a lovely holiday season!

Quiet Mindreader: You asked over 35 questions in your last reviews! You're a super friend for detailing your reactions for me like that! Thank you, thank you, thank you! Many of your first questions were resolved in a later chapter. (Yay!) A few will be resolved in the remaining chapters, I think. I'm weighing the rest. Are they necessary to understand the story, and do they need to be incorporated in, or can I comment on them outright? Here's one I think I can answer now:

From chapter 8, you asked whether Draill read her mind when he said, "Loyal or not, you could still be bound to me." They were certainly thinking along the same lines, but consider Draill's perspective: Esda had just told him she wouldn't help him with a short, "I cannot." He was rejected in what he considered his only means of gaining information about Chantbreaker. He was moved by desperation and frustration to say what he said.


	15. Madrys' Trespass

A/N: The section of the castle that I've been calling the queen's hall is being changed to the mezzanine. The location and remaining décor of the hall better depicts a fancy corridor that adjoins a residential wing and leads to the gardens, a.k.a. the mezzanine. That's not confusing, right? :/ Bear with me while I make that change to the previous chapters. (This should not conflict with my posting schedule, in case you're wondering.)

Chapter 15: Madrys' Trespass

I reflected on what Draill had told me. If Cylla was fixed upon possessing Anba and did not seek me, why had he tried to stop me from going to her? I could only ascertain the truth had come to him while he had been away that day. And now he would not stop me from challenging her.

"_All the day I've wanted to hate you."_ Those words rang in my ears, almost as intensely as Cylla's song that night.

I woke from the trance of her melody some time later, my fist pounding Draill's chest.

"You must rest, lass," he soothed, unaware that I had wakened. I allowed him to return me to my couch, and he covered me with my velvet cloak. I could not see his face in the darkness. When his hand brushed my forehead, I turned toward him. Perceiving I was awake, he withdrew.

"Draill, do not go," I petitioned. "I regret not telling you of my descent sooner, but I feared you would not listen—that you would withhold your protection."

He said not a word.

"Draill, the dagger took Arund's life, but that must be blamed on my kinsman and not on Anba." I waited, hoping my reasoning would persuade him. In my desire to make a clean breast of all that I had withheld from him, I added, "There is but one thing more: Comfort did not tell me how to free Anba."

I felt him settle at the foot of my couch. "She must have told you!" he said after a time.

"She couldn't! She aged before my eyes. She said…" I thought back, remembering her words. "She said to give my heart. I asked if she meant for me to give my heart to you. And I have, Draill! I love you, and I repent that I kept my identity from you."

"Anba is not freed, so that could not have been what she meant."

I took up the dagger on the ground beside me. My palm cradled the handle naturally. "Anba will tell me. I know she will!"

He must have heard the metal scrape against the stone, for his hand searched for mine. At once relieved that he seemed to accept Anba's innocence, I relaxed my grip

I thought he would return it; but he stood, and I became anxious.

"Draill, my dagger," I said, the shadow of fear creeping over me.

"Forgive me, Esda, but she goes with me."

"Draill!" I cried, but his steps retreated. I knew when he'd passed over the threshold. The ground outside the chapel silenced his footfall.

I pursued him to the best of my ability. By the sliver of moonlight given by the crescent in the sky, I followed.

He reached the edge of the orchard and whirled around. "Lesandra of Torromaag," said he, his voice carrying on the icy night wind, "I cannot change that you are bound here! But I will not accept further sacrifice from you. The blood of my father's enemy will not be spilled for me!"

"That is my decision alone! It is mine, and so is Anba! Give her to me!" I demanded.

He walked through the old trees toward the stone fountain and into the mezzanine, unheeding.

I saw no more of him that night, nor the next morning. Around midday the sea crashed along the banks of Draillen Wood as though a mistral tore through the waters. The waves reached the tree line there and lapped at the trunks greedily. With my chain, I could walk across the orchard and espy the sea heaving its wrath against the island.

At first I thought it was only the wind whistling around the ruins, but then the voice became distinct. I listened until the soughing of the wind died down briefly.

"Help me!" the voice pleaded.

I wandered to the farthest reach of my chain, ever finding my bonds twisting around some foliage so that I must retrace my steps to gain a better length of chain. Overlooking the island shoals, I found the cry was not so faint and answered it.

"Where are you?"

"Speak, that I might follow your voice!" it said to me. We answered one another until I saw a figure climbing, having gained the cliff of the island. It was too late once I finally perceived it was a gobboling.

The creature had no eyes, nor any sockets. It groped it's away through the brambles and entered the gardens.

I stole to the trees, my chain rattling so that the blind gobboling could easily follow.

"I bring a gift for you," spoke the mangled creature in a voice that was not the rasp of a gobboling at all, but smooth and feminine. I paused in the shadow of the orchard boughs, halting the jangle of my iron fetters. "It is I, the queen of the forest! Do not be afraid. I come to bestow on you my power!"

I stared upon the gobboling. The incongruous voice coming from the misshapen, warped being made me doubly afraid. I knew that voice.

"I know you are near," it said, tilting its head that its ears could perceive the slightest sound that might give away my position. "You, child, do not know the truth, and I will tell it to you. But first, give me some sign that you are listening, for I cannot see you. Have pity on a poor spirit! I am very aged, and my time is fast approaching. I wish only to bestow the last of my strength on a heart that is true."

Of course, I made no sign. I held my breath, hoping I might escape this gruesome creature who spoke like the woman-figure against whom I had wielded Anba more than once.

"Listen! Listen to the woes of a spirit who recants her evil ways!

"I was once a woodland sprite, born of man who practiced enchantment in ages past. My sisters who came before me were both more powerful than I. Cylla, the water sprite, played among the waves; but Anba, the first, was neither of land nor sea. She was brought into existence quite by accident, residing in the heart of man. Hearts have choice, child; and when Anba learned that darkness reigned in man's heart, she fled to be heard of no more. She left us, my sister and I. And so we searched to find her, punishing man upon land and sea for bringing such desolation to our sister."

Links from my chain fell from the jut of a rock and rattled to the ground only inches from my foot.

The gobboling's sightless face shot toward my hiding place behind the tree. I skirted it and ran toward the shore, hoping to mask my movements in the thundering waters below.

My pursuer, neck outstretched, hunted for me using the chain as a lead. I feared there was no way to outwit the horrible creature! I could not get free of my confinement, nor had I Anba to use against the gobboling.

I waited until it had wandered far apace along my trailing chain before I retreated once more to the grove, sweeping the creature off its feet as I yanked the iron fetter under its mangled legs.

In the few minutes the gobboling searched, I coiled up my chain to me, making a racket I could not disguise. My hands shook as I prepared for a scheme that had come to me in a flash, for I knew I was at great risk of failing to carry it out.

"Hearken to me, child!" cried the ugly gobboling. "I have lived in darkness, and I wish to know the light! You alone can help me; and if you do not, Cylla will conquer the whole. Her darkness will rule all!" The gobboling stepped toward the tree against which I leaned.

"Don't you care about your beloved Draill? Do you know he is this moment wounded and helpless in the forest? You have but to heed me, child, and I will give you the power to help him."

So intent was I on my plan that I did not hear her. The hideous gobboling came toward me, stepping into the circle of my trap and slewing round at the sound of the chain as I gathered it. When the gobboling turned upon me, its face held a knowing smile.

"I mean no harm to you. Look at me! Look at what Cylla has reduced me to! I am forced to inhabit this painful form, my last attempt to keep my power from my sister's grasp."

I drew the chain closer, the links slipping in my palms. I held on tightly and threw the chain in an arc that it might reach the height of the gobboling before I yanked it taut against the trunk.

The gobboling fought the iron vise at its collar bone. I cinched the chain in my grip so that it slid up, pinning the creature's neck against the dying tree. I pulled, twisting both ends against the trunk. The gobboling caught my forearm and tore my apron in its attempt to get free, but I found an unknown reserve of strength and drove the gobboling off its feet as I twisted. I held on until the chain dug into the wood, and the head of the gobboling was severed from its body. Then I dropped the chain in horror, terrified. I wanted to run but could not. My fetter was wrapped round the gobboling. I had to loose it before I could break away.

I fled to the cliffs, shaking and disgusted by what I had done to protect myself. I fell on my knees at the edge of the cliff and sobbed. For, I perceived I was not safe at all there. I knew Madrys had made some desperate trespass, a gobboling setting foot on the island. The gobbolings now moved about by day, no longer fearful of the immediacy of turning to stone if they should be dealt a death blow. There was some greater power at work in the forest, and I thought of Draill.

Madrys' words smote me. Could she have spoken truth that Draill was wounded in the forest? I remembered once in my childhood, when my nurse had finished telling me one of her more fantastic tales, I had asked her if the story were true. She had answered cryptically, "In every lie there is a pinch of truth."

Seeking solace, I hid myself in the chapel and shed many a tear, praying that Draill would return to me. I was never so joyful as the moment I heard his boot scrape the stone behind me.

I spun round, elated; but, in the next moment, it was all I could do to hurry to his aid. The Gobboling King was doubled over, unable to stand aright. He lifted his face to me, a bruised and swollen mess. There was blood in his hair and on the hand that gripped the doorway for support. His other fist was pressed to his middle.

He groaned and began to collapse. Just as I had found the strength to kill the gobboling, I was able to carry Draill to my couch.

"Esda—"

"Shh, my love. Don't try to talk."

"Cylla...she controls Draillen."

I took this in, thinking of Madrys' gobboling. Much of her message had been true. Cylla would not be stopped.

* * *

Quiet Mindreader (Guest): Draill's shoulder scratch has now been mentioned in chapter 14. Thank you for catching that! Sorry for not posting on New Year's day. Setting up my new laptop took me away from writing. :P


	16. Draill Queen

Chapter 16: Draill Queen

"I am cold, Esda."

"I will warm you, my love."

Gritting his teeth, Draill whispered in my arms, "Mortality…is agony."

I thought of my own change in strength and realized I had not missed the pain I had known before Draill's kiss. Noticing his parched lips, I kissed them gently and tried to go for water from the fountain.

"Do not go from me," he whispered.

I held him close until he slept. Cylla was silent all the night, but I think I would not have heard her song if she had tried to claim me. Fever raged through the man I loved, and I thought of nothing else but how to calm his delirium.

He was given a small reprieve from the pain, and he slept. I hurried through the dark orchard to the fountain, drawing as much water as I could in the large shells and bringing them that he might quench his fierce thirst. The noise of my chains woke him, for his rest was broken and light. Three times in the night he sat up and cried to Comfort to help him.

I, too, cried. I could not soothe his troubled dreams. The thought of losing him haunted me through the hours. I blamed myself. I had taken his immortality for my own.

The final time he sat upright and called for Comfort, he seemed to come to himself when I answered.

"Esda." He enfolded my hand, and I felt my dagger placed in my palm. "I cannot protect you. I cannot!"

"Shh. Shh, my love. Only rest." I helped him settle back upon the feather sacks and took up the torn, damp scrap of my apron, which I had used to cool his face through the night. I pressed it gently to his forehead, but he pushed my hand aside.

"Where is it?" he demanded, and I thought he had sunk into delirium once again.

"Rest now," I told him, but he would not listen.

"Where is it? Where is my ring?"

"Your ring? Why, it is here, Draill." I picked up the lace at my neck and fumbled to open the bronze box, letting the ring spill into my hand. "Here, Draill. Here is your ring!"

I led his hand to the band, cupped in my palm; but when I tried to slide it onto his finger, he pulled away impatiently, catching my left hand fast. I felt his fingers going over mine in the darkness. "What is it, Draill? The ring is not in my hand."

He pushed the band up to the second knuckle of my finger. "Esda," he whispered breathlessly. "You are my queen. I have loved no other. Lesander is dead, and so is Arund. Before I die, forgive me."

I reeled at the purpose behind his declaration.

"Say you forgive me, Esda!" he pleaded, his hoarse voice breaking.

"I-I forgive you, Draill! I love you!"

"Yes. There is peace. A selfish peace," he mumbled. "You will be hers. I cannot stop her."

He was drifting off—to death or sleep I could not perceive. I squeezed his hands in mine. "You will not die, Draill. You will not! I will not let you!"

He stirred and spoke. I brought my ear to his mouth to understand him. "...will be true to you, I vow. Always true."

"And I will be true to you, Draill Adrun," I answered, pressing my lips to his limp hands, clasped to my breast as I lay beside him. "I vow it with my heart and my life." My silent tears soaked the cloak I drew over his shivering body.

Just before the morning descended, in the murky gray before dawn, the air grew dense with some lurking force. I could not breathe for the thickness in the room. I knew well the presence of dark enchantment. My eyes traveled Draill's sleeping figure, and I slipped from my vigil beside the bed.

"Esda," he murmured.

I had but a brief look back at him before I glimpsed a shadow hovering at the threshold of the chapel doorway. I saw it by Anba's ruby light just before it flitted past and hid in the darkness along the far wall. It sped quickly, and I whirled around, realizing the danger. I moved to protect him from that evil presence, to shield Draill's wounded, mortal body as he lay, barely conscious.

I threw myself over him, my dagger raised high. "Go from here, evil being!"

My love opened his eyes.

"Too late, weakling," mocked Draill's cracking voice, his lips barely moving. "I am master now."

He grabbed for my dagger, and in my attempt to free my hand, we rolled onto the chapel floor.

"Oh, Draill!" I cried, hearing the crack of his head against the stone.

Slowly rising to his knees, he looked to me, his expression so malevolent I gasped and backed away.

"You must capitulate! 'Tis I or Cylla!" He swayed as he stood. "There is no other choice. You must take the fate Cylla lays at your door or walk free with my power guiding you!"

I ran from the chapel and stumbled to the orchard in terror, my chains twisting upon every rock and shrub. Choking on a sob, I turned to see Draill, his worn body following. I knew not what to do!

"I will be more merciful than Cylla. Come now. This is the end!" he declared. He tottered and collapsed against a tree. I heard him speak under his breath, "Wretched mortal!"

I did not know what to do to help my love, my dying Draill! He was possessed in Madrys' clutches, and she would kill him in her pursuit of me. Had not I told him only hours ago that my life and heart were his? My eyes went to the ring Draill had placed on my finger. Tightening my grip on my dagger, I cried, "Take me, Anba! Hear the cry of the queen! I vow my life, if you will but save his!"

The dagger continued to glow as it had done all along.

"Hear me, Anba!" I pleaded urgently. "Save him!"

"She does not hear you, but I do." The song rose above the tumultuous waves. It came from the other side of the island, from the other, crueler sister. "Heed me, Draill Queen, if you want him to live. Come to me now. I will give you his life for yours."

I pressed my hands to my ears. But too late. Cylla's song held me fast. My will had no sway over my own movements, even as I watched Draill push away from the tree and follow, stumbling forward.

He beckoned to me with his arms outstretched, his abdomen stained with blood. "I am your escape! She will not be merciful!"

Through her music, Cylla told me to drive my dagger into the shackle at my ankle. I obeyed, cutting it and the side of my leg. I pried it from my limb, took up the dagger, and ran.

The blood streamed down my calf as Cylla sang, "Come to me, Draill Queen. Come and sate my vengeance!"

I was driven to the far wing of the castle. My lungs ached as I climbed and leapt over the last standing inner wall to reach the solitary turret. There I found the entrance to Cylla's pit. The steps descended into darkness, the outer dungeon of the fortress. Her whispers haunted me on every side. I was led like the wives, daughters, and mothers of gobboling kings past. And I gave no fight.

Anba's ruby glowed its warning of evil present, lighting my way down wet, broken stones.

I cannot express how it was, coming into the presence of the powerful serpent of the sea. While Madrys repulsed me, Cylla was as mesmeric as her song. A sense of hopeful yearning woke in me such as I had not felt since I was a small child awaiting my father's arrival at Nouffrey. It was not difficult to go to her. The dread that should have pervaded my soul was not there. It mattered little what happened to me; only the thought of Draill's end brought awareness of the danger.

I reached the keeper's chamber, levels above the dungeon. The whispers took shape in the darkness, beyond the unhinged, iron door.

"Esda! Esda, no!" I heard him call from the top of the steps. "It is I! Is it Draill! Return to me! Esdaaaa!"

"Madrys!" The chant grew around me. "Tell her to come to us!" By the ruby light, pale eyes peered at me. Their heads wavered like the blossoms of a water flower moved by the current.

"Call to her!" demanded one, and it thrust its ghostly face into mine. I saw then the fullness of its eyes with small pupils that shifted like silver liquid in a moving glass.

I would not speak, no matter what terror came upon me. I would not lure Draill into Cylla's pit. But I could do nothing to stop Madrys, and it was she who spoke through Draill.

"At last, dear sister! You, who would not allow me into your presence for centuries, finally grant me an audience?"

Cylla did not speak. Instead, the faces lit by Anba's red glow stared upon me as they had when I had first seen them in the water. Hungrily, anticipating. One face, its scaly neck wrapped round the broken iron grate that had fallen from the dungeon door, blinked in the light and gasped.

"'Tis Anba at last! Anba is home."

"She has come to make peace with us!"

The words were given in a sing-song lilt in celebration.

"Draill Queen," one called to me, its head rising from the black pit. "We will speak face to face."

Her face was pale like the rest of them. Golden hair clung in ringlets around her serpentine neck, but it was the shape of her eyes that caught my attention.

"You are Adrun's mother," I said, recognizing the resemblance.

She nodded with regal condescension. "I am Elinor." Slithering on her belly she came closer until, rising up, she coiled and lifted her head to address me. She gazed upon the ring round my finger and said, "You are Adrun's queen."

I did not attempt to draw away from her, for I felt safe and at peace in the presence of this creature.

"It is so," I said plainly. "I have given him my heart, milady."

Her look was almost coy. "Such a youth you must be to speak such impassioned words."

"She is very young!" another head seconded.

"If you truly knew love, you would know the Gobboling King isn't capable of returning such devotion."

I looked away, pierced by her words. I sensed they were true. Had he not told me he could not love?

"There, there, my child. All is not lost. Have you bound yourself by any vow to him?"

I looked upon the face of Elinor and answered openly, "I am bound to him, milady."

The watery substance in the midst of her eye almost disappeared. I watched as it gradually widened and fluctuated once more.

"I asked you not if you were bound to him. I asked whether you had given any vow?"

"Tisn't any matter if she has, Cylla," spoke Draill from behind me. He could little hold himself up. His arm was pressed into his side, and he leaned against the wall of the dungeon keeper's chamber, breathless. "You must relinquish her to me. Give me the girl that I may aid you, sister!"

"You?" Elinor's eyes narrowed as she looked past me to Draill. "You betrayed me, as you betrayed Anba long ago."

"Not I!" denied the lips of Draill. "Who decided what we would do? You told me all would be well, and look now! She has returned to repay you for your schemes. And I will beg her forgiveness. She will not betray me as you have done!"

Elinor's long neck danced, and I perceived she was laughing.

"You may side with whom you will. We do not need you."

"You lie!" Draill accused, approaching the great gap in the chamber floor. He waved away Elinor's face as it came nearer his, her wide pupils undulating. "You try your mind games with me? You have lost your wits at last. I cannot be brought under your influence. Has it been so long that you think me mortal?"

"No, sister. But the one you inhabit is mortal. Come!" Draill's body became ramrod. He stepped forward as if he felt no pain.

"Draill! Draill!" I lunged for him, drawing him back from the pit. The blood fomented at his lips as he fought me. I could do nothing to turn him from Cylla's course; she would speed him to his death.

"What is this? You cannot summon the Gobboling King!" objected Madrys as the blood rolled from Draill's mouth.

"He reigns no more. Arund's queen will never bind me again! Your time is come. Surrender, Madrys."

In desperation I cried, "Stop him, Madrys. I will accept you if you let him live!"

Draill's body shuddered and collapsed in my arms. The room whirled about, and I felt as though I stared upon myself from the depths of Cylla's watery abyss.

"Do not fight me!"

In terror I opened my eyes, realizing the words had come from my own mouth.

* * *

A/N: I'm posting this in a rush. Reader, let me know about any typos.

Quiet Mindreader: Did this chapter answer some of the questions you had about Madrys and Cylla?


	17. Holding Fast

Chapter 17 – Holding Fast

I held Draill at the brink of Cylla's pit while the will of another mind clouded my own. Instinctively, I fought to preserve awareness as I drifted between consciousness and some mindless sphere. My thoughts faded, faded like leaves scattering in the breeze. Memories fell away, dry and crumpled, until one rose to my mind's eye: the moment when I lay beside Draill, his hands pressed to my heart. My words returned to me, "_I will be true to you, Draill Adrun. I vow it with my heart and my life_." I came to my senses with a start, my eyes transfixed upon Elinor's face. The surging liquid of her pupils was a vast sea that was on the verge of drowning me. The cruel will I struggled against vanished, and the haze of thought returned.

The spinning room righted, and I dragged Draill from the edge. He was motionless and heavy in my arms. Pressing my ear against his chest, I could not perceive his heartbeat.

"No!" My whispered appeal became a sob. "Draill, do not go from me!

"Welcome, Madrys," chanted the serpentine heads. "We have waited long." So focused was Cylla on her triumph over her sister that I was able to stand with Draill and make my way to the steps.

"What is this?" spoke Elinor in surprise. I was arrested in my retreat when Elinor thrust her face into mine. "You did this to her."

I turned and saw a serpentine tentacle extended in the midst of the many faces. There was but a stump where a head should have been.

Retreating with Draill across my shoulder, I declared, "I shall do the same to you, if you do not keep away!"

"I am not so easily defeated, Esda. That is your name, is it not? Madrys says it is the mortal's name for you."

Amidst my attempts to remove Draill from danger, I became aware that Elinor had called her son "the mortal." It revealed to me the depth of this deception. She was nothing more than a vessel of Cylla's will, as I had almost become.

"Remember the sea, Cylla," I said, challenging her outright. "I used Anba against you then, and you fled."

The eyes that so closely resembled Draill's went wide. "I was not prepared for a helpless mortal to possess such a power." She spoke conversationally, but I felt the subtle change in that dark chamber of woe and grew tense. The sense of ease had vanished. Cylla was now working to incite fear in me.

"You cannot fool me, Cylla! Let us go before you rue your fate!"

"Such an impassioned child," whispered the heads. The stump in the center wavered, and Elinor announced, "'Tis a vow you've made, Esda. Madrys could not enter your heart because it is protected. You see," her eyes pulsed again with their strange, disappearing pupils, "we know now. But the mortal to whom you gave your vow, his heart is not so fixed."

The thought pierced me. If Madrys could not possess me because of my vow to Draill, why had she been capable of possessing him? Had he not vowed the same fidelity to me?

My thoughts and emotions spiraled downward. I sensed it was Cylla's doing, but I followed them down, sickened by my own foolishness.

Had not Draill warned me he could not love? Was it truly the Gobboling King's legacy to bequeath to his heir a heartless existence?

As I stared into the receding waters of Elinor's irides, the thoughts flooded into my head and brought an anguish that made me gasp. I had bound myself to one who loosed the evil and bound the good.

"Does it pain you to know Madrys found no love in his heart for you?" I knew Cylla tried me where I was most vulnerable, yet I sunk all the same. "What do you have here?" she asked, answering, "Naught but misery. There is nothing left but forever."

Shivering, I took in the length of my days. Endless, loveless, useless time unraveled before my eyes. I would never cease to exist. I would go on and on, ever searching for joy and never finding it.

I know I would have been lost had not the memory of true joy come to me in a flash. I remembered seeing it in Comfort's eyes. And I remembered her love. A powerful love. Draill had not known who she was to him, and she had loved him still.

I tightened my hold on Draill and told her, "My love exists! My love for him will never die. That is what I have!"

"It is too late, Esda. You have nothing. You are nothing."

The words, so recently spoken to me by my stepmother, made me feel my worthlessness. I raised Anba in my hand as though I could defend myself physically from her attacks upon my mind. The band on my finger reflected her bright red glow, and a thought spread through me, warming me like the sun among my field of flowers. I was Draill's queen. He'd told me of his love when he'd placed his seal on my hand. He was the last Gobboling King, and I would see him freed, as he had longed to be, if it took eternity. My love for the man, who might never hear the words spoken again from my lips, was my gift, given freely. I would love him without doubt, without changing.

"You are a deceiver, Cylla!" I answered. "I have everything! I have a power you cannot possess!"

The blue flame encompassed us, the ring upon my finger hot like ice. My token, forged by my vow of love, awoke and burned.

"Well enough, Esda," she said, retreating. "I will concede to you your prize this day. Take him and be merry for it. You may have the dwindling life of your Gobboling King."

I turned to go when she added from the shadows, "But answer me this: How long will Anba hide from me?"

Intent on going from her presence, I did not look back. "Anba is not hidden. She is here!" I held up the dagger, surprised that Cylla would pretend not to know it after her many faces had welcomed her.

The silence that succeeded my response caused me to look back. Their pale faces stared as though they had turned to stone before they broke into laughter, raucous and dreadful.

Elinor's face spread into a hideous, triumphant grin.

"Ah, Anba. To be handled by a mere baby!"

_En masse_, the eyes of the heads of Cylla grew, the pupils enlarging so that they swallowed up their irises. The melody of their voices flooded my ears. Once again a prisoner of their enchantment, I lost my footing and slipped. Draill and I tumbled down the stones. I struggled to keep my will my own while a chill rippled through me. I looked to Draill and found the blue fire protecting us had dissipated. He was sprawled at the foot of the steps. Swiftly, Cylla's coils wrapped around him and dragged him toward the pitch blackness of the dungeon's belly.

I lunged to overtake him, gouging my dagger into the eye of the face that drew him onward. Cylla's many voices shrieked from the pain I caused them, and then they were silent. They rocked in some unseen sea, their eyes vast and hungry. I realized too late they were singing to Draill.

Beside me, he opened his eyes. He stared at me emptily as I knelt next to him; and before I could think to stop him, he'd tossed me onto my back, snatching Anba from my hand and thrusting the blade at my head. I rolled, barely avoiding the jab, as he fell forward by the weight of his own attack. He raised himself again and came for me. Influenced by the song meant for his ears alone, he lifted his arms above his head to come down on me with a fatal blow. I caught his forearms, and we wrestled with Anba until I pinned his hands behind him. My strength would win out soon, I thought, when he surprised me by letting go the dagger. My hands, holding the dagger, came down upon his back, piercing him through the left shoulder blade.

Draill seemed to come to himself. He stared upon me in astonishment before he collapsed on his side.

"She has done it for us!"

"A great trick!"

"Such a fine thought it was!" congratulated Cylla's faces one to another.

Panicked, I tried to remove the dagger, but it was caught fast. All my strength could not prevail against the hold the blade had taken, rooted in his shoulder. I took Draill by the arms and begged, "No! Do not go from me!"

"There now. What is your love that it cannot surpass death?" Cylla mocked, chiding, "So, close, Anba! But, alas, you've found a mere mortal heart!"

A mortal heart? Anba had found a heart! Realizing Cylla's meaning, I grasped at the handle in Draill's back again. I felt his body lurch, and the red glow of Anba infused his being.

I let go the handle. "Anba?" I whispered. "I give my heart, Anba! Save him!"

"Oh, look. She tries to revive him," scoffed Cylla. "Shall we help her?"

The necks of those dreadful snake-creatures began to coil around us. I pressed Draill to me. "Let him be, Cylla! He is nothing to you, and he is all to me!"

"Ah, but child. Youthful love is fleeting, and we are forever!"

"Esda," he breathed into my ear. Startled, I tried to pull away that I might look on him, but Cylla's coils prevented me. "Do you love me?" he asked.

"Yes, Draill! Yes!"

"Then summon the flame and hold fast to me."

The emotions churning in me called upon the protection of my vow, but the blue flame did not surround us. I clung to him, crying out, "I will hold fast—"

My lungs choked as I felt sharp metal thrust through my heart. I closed my eyes, aware of the burning fire threading through me. 'I will hold fast to you,' I repeated in my mind over and again.

Vaguely, I heard Cylla speak, but I did not comprehend her words. I was in pain, unable to gain breath, when Anba came to me. Her presence filled me with hope. She revealed her story to me: the beginning of her existence; the hearts she'd known and searched, looking for goodness; and, finally, the search for love. Without words she asked my permission to use my will as her own, and I gave it. I raised my head and found I was staring into Draill's dark eyes. He smiled. It was truly he!

"Together," he said.

I returned his smile. "Together." We would give all for her.

A white flash burst from us, creating a dazzling canopy of light. We stood beneath it and spoke as one.

"Elinor, daughter of Corin Glaun, come forward."

"I am here," she answered, and I knew by the tremor in her voice she was truly her own.

"Do you wish to remain with your captor, or do you choose to give up your immortality?"

"What is this?" cried the others, murmuring as they drew back, releasing us from their grip.

"Your answer, Elinor." I watched Draill's lips as I spoke the words with him.

"I choose to be free!"

"Come to the light."

As her head extended toward the light, I caught a glimpse of the fear in her dark eyes, so much like her son's. Elinor hesitated, staring into the brightness.

"Esda," Draill whispered. "Hold fast to me."

I latched onto Draill's gaze again and felt Anba return. My distraction had caused her to recede, for she would not force me to do aught. I knew then what was meant by holding fast to Draill. I must be fixed entirely upon our purpose.

With a shout, Elinor entered the light.

The heads of Cylla shrieked in agony.

"Beatrice, daughter of Draill Duran, would you be free like your mother?"

"Oh, yes, Anba! I wish to be free!" And Beatrice entered the light with no hesitation.

Cylla's voices protested, "Anba! You deceive and wrong us!"

Draill and I spoke, "Eldreda, daughter of—"

"Do not speak his name! I will not come. 'Tis no freedom for me in your light!"

We went on. "Joselyn, ward of Lord Beauregard and natural daughter of Garamin Mete."

"I am glad to come. Thank you," she spoke quietly, her pale face close to my ear.

"Anba, call upon me!"

"Call upon me!"

The names rolled from our tongues, while some voiced their dissent. It was Eldreda who wished Anba ill, then Claudia and Margot. They spoke enticing lies to each who desired to be freed. Some they beseeched, and finally they spoke cruelly.

"She lies to you, Rachel. Do not trust her words," cajoled Claudia. "You have always been the simple one. Remember what your life was like before. Anba will punish you forever!"

"Has not Cylla brought you happiness?"

"Ha! Happiness!" said Rachel. "I have lived only to feed off the remnant of goodness left in the new ones. I have been but a mindless beast, and I will be no more!"

Rachel gave herself to the light.

"You deny me my power," spoke a voice. I was near to turning my head to see who rose from the pit, yet I stayed my will upon Anba. "This deception is beneath you, sister."

"Cylla. At last," we said, and I knew that she had hidden herself behind these her many faces.

* * *

coolcat12345: It was great to read your question about Elinor and Cylla! I wondered if a reader would question how that worked. I hope this chapter made things clearer.

J Luc Pitard: Ha! No, I don't think liking this story makes you a sadist. If it did, where would that leave me, the writer of the tale? I'd rather believe, like you, that those who willingly chose to aid her, even at the risk of dying for their choices, strengthened her resolve. I relished your analytical review! Thank you for sharing your reader perspective.

Quiet Mindreader: Madrys and Cylla countered each other, having both given their enchantments to the Gobboling King. Now that Cylla has gotten the upper hand against Madrys, there is nothing that prevents her from attacking/luring Draill. The ring is the token of a vow for two people: the Gobboling King and, later, Esda. The ring was never given to anyone but Esda. I hope that answers your questions about the signet ring. I think the rest of your questions were answered in this chapter. If not, please let me know. I look forward to your insightful reviews, my friend!


	18. Choose

Chapter 18 – Choose

"Confront me, sister. Tell me what wrong I have done you that you steal from me this way!"

At Anba's urging, Draill and I turned our heads to face Cylla at last. I saw the enchantress, a figure ghostly blue. Her body was a shimmering pillar of scales, her arms splayed into long tentacles. Luminous white eyes peered from beneath her dark, wet hair that lay like seaweed against her bluish face. Perhaps she was lovely; I knew not. I felt her cruelty, so opposite the goodness of Anba.

"They chose for themselves. You knew their despair," we answered her.

"Did they choose, or did you deceive them? Come, Anba; you have known evil. Who does not have some evil inside of them? I say better to accept it than deny it does not exist!"

"You spoke the same long ago. You have not changed."

"But you have, sister. You do not have the power you once had," challenged Cylla.

I shiver raced through me, for her enchantment was dreadful in the hate it poured forth. I felt Draill's hand slip from around me, and I released that side of him that he might enfold my hand in his. I yearned for his reassurance, and Anba had conveyed my need.

"I do not have your power, Cylla. I am glad for that. And now you will let them go."

As Anba urged me to return my gaze to Draill's, Cylla laughed.

"Of course. But you will not find the rest so easy!"

Our voices lifted, and we called to them all, "Choose now if you will be free!"

"Anba, wait!"

"Margot! You traitor!"

They came to the light, and the force of them burst upon us. The dungeon began to quake. My eyes stayed fixed upon Draill's, and Anba magnified the calmness he exuded to aid me. The shock of the blow ebbed. The stones fell around us, but I was not afraid.

"It is time," Draill said to me, and Anba showed me what to do. Carefully, I drew out the blade from my heart and his back. Anba took away the pain and made our bodies whole and separate. Holding the dagger in one hand and Draill's hand in the other, I turned to face Cylla. A fissure in the stone appeared behind her, widening and traveling upward. The wall broke away in a torrent of water that came crashing in, filling the crumbling chamber.

As Cylla escaped to the sea, I saw that some of the long tentacles of her arms were cut and charred. Only a few serpentine heads, perhaps a dozen, remained, and the headless Madrys. The water flooded the dungeon, caught us up, and carried us on a cresting series of waves. We crashed upon the opposite shore and clung to the land together, gasping for air.

I helped Draill to stand, and together we climbed to higher ground to escape the rising water. When we reached the summit, I observed Draill's state. His face was no longer battered; and, though I saw the remnant of blood upon his tunic, I knew that the wound in his abdomen had been healed by Anba, as well.

I, then, fastened my eyes upon the island in the midst of the thrashing sea. I wished I had not, for I saw the last tower of Castle Draill sink beneath the water. The waves washed over the land, beating the remnant of the keep until nothing remained.

"Do not be afraid," spoke Draill at my side. "I felt your fear in Cylla's presence, Esda. Do not let it overshadow your hope."

I smiled. "I am not afraid, my love."

He placed his hand over the right side of his chest, where the angled blade had extended downward to enter my heart. "She has gone from me," he observed with fallen countenance. "Esda, she is with you?"

"Yes," I said, hearing the thoughts Anba expressed to me. "She will stay with me as long as I wish her to remain."

Taking up my hands, he asked intently, "But you would never wish…?"

"No! I shall never wish her to go from me."

We exchanged a look of understanding. We had experienced the beauty of Anba's presence. Knowing her goodness, I could not conceive of how one might desire to part from her, though I knew some had. I looked upon Draill with pity.

"She gave me the choice," he said, reading my expression, "and I asked that she protect your heart. For I love you, Esda!" His eyes were alight with discovery. "I perceive now that love is distinctive in every heart. It is a myriad of choices with every breath."

"And I choose you with every breath. It is my privilege as your queen," said I, presenting my dagger, Lesander's Victory.

His eyes questioned mine as he accepted it.

"My king, you must bind the evil and loose the good," I told him.

Solemnly, he studied my gift in his hands. When he lifted his eyes again, he said, "I give my vow, Esda: I will destroy Cylla and the darkness she evokes."

"Then you will need this." I stepped up to him and slid my arms around his neck. I pressed my lips to his and gave to him what I had taken. I felt the power go from me. For I had asked Anba to protect him with an immortal strength, and her answer had come that it was my choice.

His arms tightened around me, and he returned my kiss until I pulled away, breathless.

"A right good gift, lass," he observed, his dark eyes flashing.

The water crashed against the boulders of the rise we'd climbed and pooled at our feet. Draill's eyes lost their playfulness as he looked past me. I followed his gaze to the forest and sobered, at once struck by the daunting nature of our work.

"She takes to the land now. Her powers and Madrys' combined will seek to extend their boundaries. I fear she will go the way of Madrys' gobbolings."

"So many lives were lost in the War Against Evil," I said sorrowfully. "This will be a greater cruelty. The people of the towns cannot defend themselves." Then I gasped at the realization of Cylla's mercilessness as Anba opened my mind to Cylla's ways. "Draill! She will bury them all under water!"

The sea spilled onto high ground, flooding the land and carrying debris along streams that separated, merged, and grew. We ran, seeking dry ground, until we reached the knoll overlooking the field where I had first encountered Madrys. I looked across the expanse and saw the water surrounded us. Only the branches of the slender ash and sprawling oak rose above the lapping tide.

The sound of a trumpet came from the northeast, drawing my attention to a scene in the distance.

"'Tis a call to rally!" cried Draill. He dashed down the knoll and plunged into the water.

In the distance, I saw men in battle array. The banners of dukes and earls of the kingdom filled the gaps between the trees, their horses splashing through the water. I espied the commander by the dressing of his helm. King Thadus' crest was on the shoulder of his scarlet cloak.

The water was coming in from the west, and the host of Torromaag was soon deluged in its flux. They were foundering, their horses' necks straining to stay above the water while their weighted cloaks shifted ahead of them in the rushing current.

"Retreat to higher ground!" the commander cried.

I surveyed the flooded forest and the cluster of valiant men trying to stay afloat. I could not foresee how we would defeat such evil. The water was up to my thighs on the hill when Draill returned for me.

"They will surely fix upon Lutpyer, the great hill on which the Battle of the Mists was fought," he spoke above the rush. "Esda! It was where my father was brought low!"

I went with him, swimming northward in the eastward current. Where the land rose up, Draill sprinted ahead. The water sent its blows against the hill of Lutpyer, surging ever higher. As I reached the top, I heard Draill roar, "Courage! The enemy will not prevail against us! We have one more powerful!"

An answering rumble came from the hill. I saw Thadus' men, numbering about four hundred, draw together side by side, beating their swords against their shields. Those lacking helms stared out with eyes glazed with sleeplessness. They were a haggard lot, I realized—the last of a much greater battalion.

"I am Draill Adrun," he declared to the line. "I am the king of this forest!"

The waters erupted below, and up came Cylla's faces from their watery tomb, their ghastly white eyes aglow.

"We obey, Gobboling King!" they cried as one. "What is your bidding?"

A cry of dismay went up from the soldiers. "Gobboling King? He's the enemy!"

"Listen to me! I am not who—"

But Thadus' men did not hear. They came at him with one accord, driving him from the hill.

I little thought of my actions as I ran toward them, crying, "Stop!" It went unheard among the clash of metal. Draill fought with only his dagger and drove them back. I think they were taken aback by his strength; for, next I knew, they opened their line and encircled him.

I heard him speak the words, "You must listen!" before the terrible beat of their swords began upon their shields again.

Then I felt the sharp claws of a gobboling sink into my ankle. I screamed as I fell. I tried to fight off the creature as it lunged for my neck with its teeth. I caught only a glimpse of the numberless gobbolings, rising from the waters to climb the hill of Lutpyer, before I felt the gobboling's teeth clamp down on my neck. I would've been dead an instant later, my neck crushed between its jaws, if I had not pushed my fist against the creature's chest. It had no time to cry out before it felt apart, my fist moving straight through ash. An arrow sped by me and struck another gobboling I had not seen, an arm's length away from my position on the hill. I scrambled to my feet to escape the horde, and a knight raced toward me to cut them off as I fled.

I was pulled into heart of their company, where they surrounded me and guarded me from further attack. I was a spectator in Cylla's onslaught while the water rose to our feet. I looked for Draill but did not see him until a pack of gobbolings broke through, opening up the soldier's circle of defense. Draill was alone upon the southern slope of the hill, smashing a sword into numberless gobbolings as though they were ants, his chest awash in the flood. They continued to rise out of the water in ever greater numbers until they toppled upon him, gobboling after gobboling, and he disappeared. I cried out, thinking they would overwhelm him, and tried to rush to his aid; but I was kept back by the soldiers, who had closed the circle once again. Their defense was breached for a second time when a tree fell and rolled down the side of the hill. When they broke away, I could not gather why until a second tree hit and rolled down the hill. The soldiers facing southward were relieved of their fighting briefly as the log took down all the gobbolings in its wake. They flailed in the water for a time, and then the horde began to dwindle. I saw bodies afloat in the water before the third tree fell. This time I was able to perceive that it was Draill felling the trees! He stood at the foot of the torn stump. A soldier nearby expressed his astonishment at his strength.

Seeing my chance, I boldly declared, "He is not your enemy! Look at what he does! He is ridding the hill of gobbolings, not calling them upon us!"

Their eyes turn on me, and I perceived in the faces of those whose heads were bare that I had not vindicated Draill. Rather, my words had placed me under scrutiny.

* * *

coolcat12345: Are all of Cylla's faces from the Draill line? No, but she prefers the immortal ones, Draill queens. In the last chapter one of Cylla's number makes mention that they "feed off" the goodness of their new recruits. So, there are some undead in her that were not originally immortal. Does that info help? I, too, want to know more about an antagonist's background when I'm reading. I'm sorry to say I won't be able to go into more back story in this tale. I appreciate your reviews very much!

Quiet Mindreader: I knew I shouldn't have used "irides!" It's the plural of "iris." That's another word I need to highlight and fix. I will also be editing where Cylla questions Esda about why Anba isn't revealing herself. That, obviously, was not well-communicated. Thanks for questioning that, my friend! Yeah, that moral just found its way in there. Imagine that! :)


	19. The King of Woebolin

Chapter 19: The King of Woebolin

I stared upon a knight in soiled armor standing among the wearied warriors and told to him what Anba urged me to speak.

"Thadus, son of Amlard. The hour is upon us. He," I gestured to Draill, "is your kinsman. He must break the hold of darkness in this place."

The solitary soldier stepped forward and removed his helm.

"Bow to your king!" cried their commander, for I perceived by the hesitation of the other soldiers that all except their leader had not known of the presence of their sovereign among them.

As his army knelt, Thadus stared upon me, helm in hand.

"Who are you? A seer?"

"I am your subject, Lady Lesandra Berendine, daughter of the late duke of Istledon, Sir John Berendine. I beseech you, Your Majesty," I said, falling to my knees, "give ear to what I have told you! He is your kinsman!"

"I know of you. I received the message that your lands were to be returned to you by threat of the fabled Gobboling King." Thadus turned to Draill and commanded, "Answer! Are you he?"

Draill opened his mouth to address him when a line of foot soldiers cried out in surprise. Cylla's pale arms snaked around them, and, shaking the weapons from their hands, she drew the panicking warriors down into the water.

"It's a ruse!" cried the commander.

Seeing the men would attack him, Draill picked up a discarded sword in challenge. "I am your ally, but I will defend myself!"

The king of Torromaag raised his sword in answer. "Then defend, Gobboling King!"

"Death to him!" shouted the men as they surrounded the duelers.

I bounded to my feet, for Anba had given an image to me. Scrambling down the side of Lutpyer, I entered the rising waters. They were icy cold, and my limbs went numb as they had the first time I'd met Cylla. Sleepiness swept over me in the waters gathering over my head, but I fixed my steps on the way Anba directed. I concentrated on her, and Anba gave to me warmth so that I felt not the deadening chill. I knew only when I had reached the place that I was to halt. I opened my eyes and saw I was encompassed in a shield of red flames. Before me stood the pale blue Cylla, her hair drifting beneath the water, her coiled arms afloat and circling round me. Her black eyes glittered with malice, but she could not stop me. I reached out my hand and touched her shimmering scales.

She shuddered. The water went up like a vapor, a great mist that left the land dry.

"Here is your enemy, King Thadus!" I declared to the men lost in the fog covering the hill as it rose to the trees. "She has long haunted Draillen Wood. Many have perished and suffered for her pleasure!"

"Come," I urged them. "Come and make an end of this war. Make peace, king of Woebolin. Make peace, king of Rhomaag. Fight this battle side by side as brothers. For, you were brothers long ago before love was replaced by fear."

Cylla's figure changed. She rose up in the shape of a colossal brown horse on the dry earth. "You cannot contain us, Anba. Where fear gathers, love must flee!"

Again, I called out to them, "Give your allegiance to your brother!"

Above me, their swords crossed. They studied each other before bringing their weapons to the ground. I heard not their words, but I knew the impact of them; for they roared their battle cries and thundered down the hill with Thadus' men. The great horse reared and came down upon the earth with a force that caused the ground to shake and the king's horses to shy and throw their riders.

I did what Anba beckoned me to do to stop the quake.

"Draill!" I cried to him. "The dagger!"

At Anba's request I brought my fist to the ground to show him what he, too, must do, and my ring burned upon my finger as it touched the earth.

Draill, who had fallen to the ground, drove the blade into earth, and, immediately, there arose a wall of soldiers in battle array. I knew through Anba that these were the warriors in the Battle of the Mist who had roamed the wood under Madrys' enchantment, taking gobboling form when summoned. Light glinted off their shining swords and breastplates, light that had no source in the mist-laden forest. They banded together and began to surround the dark horse.

Their weapons flashed as they beat them into the forest floor in solemn blow after blow. The ground shook again until Cylla's disguise fell from her in a heap of mud.

Her serpentine arms rose over the heads of the ghostly host, and her remaining faces accused, "What is this, Gobboling King? You made a vow to me! I gave you my power! You cannot be free of me!"

Draill stepped toward the forgotten armies of Woebolin and Rhomaag, and as he passed me I saw that the hand holding his dagger shook. The battalion parted, allowing him to approach the enchantress.

"I renounce you, Cylla!" he cried. "The king of Woebolin renounces the darkness! I will serve the light!"

Gasping, Draill fell to his knees and repeated, "I renounce you, Cylla." I perceived she was using her song upon him. When she coiled her scaly arms, tightening them around him, I wanted to go to his aid. It was the first time I thought to disobey Anba. Though she told me he had already won, I knew the intensity of Cylla's summons. I feared Draill would be lost. It took all my efforts to overcome my doubt, and I was rewarded. The brilliant army circling Cylla raised their arrows, spears, and swords and jabbed them through her arms. The remaining heads of Cylla fell to the ground, their long necks writhing mutely. Cylla screamed for them, and in her agony I saw Draill crawl away, his hands empty. I looked again at Cylla's shining scales and found Lesander's Victory lodged in her side.

The host of Rhomaag and Woebolin moved inward, their helms merging into one splendid shield over her. I know not how it was that Draill passed through them, but he came forth and collapsed upon the ground amidst Cylla's screams. I ran and fell beside him, clasping him in my arms and sobbing in relief. When Thadus' men came and carried us away from the danger, I was aware of nothing but the man I held to tightly.

A final cry went up and all was silent. We looked back, knowing the enchantress' end had come at last. Before our eyes the ghostly infantry turned and came for us. Thadus' men set hand to their swords, but did nothing. The sight of such a number of valiant men turned on us was enough to take any thought of fight from us all. They moved in step until they aligned themselves in even rows. Two commanders stepped forward. One wore a green mantle, and on his arm was Woebolin's crest. He withdrew his helm and faced the other knight, who displayed a crest similar to Torromaag's. I saw that the second commander had removed his helm, as well.

As Woebolin's leader held out his hand to the other, the Rhomaagan soldier took a step and embraced his ally instead.

Anba said to me, "Tell them it is Draill Arund, former King of Woebolin and Sedfric, former King of Rhomaag." I declared it readily, and it greatly allayed the fear of the men who looked on.

Bare-headed, the king of Woebolin approached the beloved man I held. Unsteadily, Draill brought himself to his feet to receive the ghostly king. We saw, as well, that the king of Rhomaag approached Thadus. In unison both kings fell to one knee. The entire host followed, kneeling in a precise ripple before Draill and Thadus. Their sparkling armor and vivid mantles dimmed and vanished, leaving not a one.

I saw the questioning gaze that passed between Draill and Thadus, but we spent no time speaking of what had occurred. There were wounded that needed aid, and the dead had to be buried.

I watched Draill falter under the weight of an unconscious soldier. "Esda," he observed breathlessly, "I have only mortal strength now."

I relayed Anba's answer, saying, "You have renounced Cylla's power."

The mist had dispersed overhead, and the sun was sending its midday rays of light through the trees when the dead were laid to rest.

King Thadus approached and reached out his hand to Draill. "Will you call me brother?"

Draill raised his head from the freshly dug mound and took the offered hand solemnly. "I did not know we were blood," he said, looking into the eyes of his kin, the king of Torromaag.

I looked from one to the other. Thadus' thick, reddish beard made it impossible to ascertain much of a resemblance.

I heard the relief in the voices of the soldiers. I also saw their exhaustion.

At Anba's instruction, I turned and strode away.

"Esda!" Draill called to me. "Where are you going?"

"To the island!" I answered. "There is food to be prepared for our guests."

He must have thought me mad. I would've thought it mad myself but Anba told me what would await us there. Still, the half of it did not cross my mind. I came to the bank and halted in astonishment.

There rested the Castle Draill, pristine. Its bridge was down in welcome, and the walkway of stone lined the water from shore to door.

Draill placed his hand on my arm, having followed me.

"Is it a vision?"

"It is a gift," I answered.

We entered the castle, where Draill invited King Thadus and his men to feast on the fruits of the living orchard. Though the year was long past the bearing season, the sun and land had risen to provide. We fished in the sea, and in the days following there were hunts in the peaceful Draillen Forest. We had meat for many days, and in that time every one of the wounded men recovered.

When Thadus left the castle, he went with the king of Woebolin to secure Draill's seat at Berlhart. The steward, my cousin, still resided there. We were told by Thadus' men that the gobbolings had fallen at the gate of Berlhart, for Madrys' power had waned soon after my return to Draillen.

Before he left the castle, Thadus took upon himself to summon subjects from Nouffrey to serve me and the household at Castle Draill. Among the ladies-in-waiting I requested were the daughters of Ketchum, matrons who were of good reputation.

When Draill returned from Berlhart, our first interview was brief. He gave to me a sapphire ring and a delicate headdress of pearls, the only remaining jewels of the house of Draill, and he introduced to me the king's bishop. He was to marry us in a fortnight, Draill explained. I took this, I imagined, with equanimity. Gift-laden carts had begun to arrive daily from the neighboring estates. I was overwhelmed and saw the preparation for a wedding as yet another task to accomplish in a short time. Cloth and seamstresses were sent for, that I might prepare.

King Thadus himself arrived on the afternoon before the day of our wedding in order to witness our union. At table I learned from him that my cousin Berlhart, in his panic to defend his castle from gobboling attack, had called on an enemy of Torromaag to aid him. Thadus laughed as he told his listeners how the armies the steward had requested had come, entered the castle as allies, and had held Berlhart prisoner for days. Thadus' men had quickly made waste of the deceivers, owing to the overthrow from the inside when the captives saw they were rescued. But Berlhart and his lady were killed before the gate of the castle was taken.

I met with King Thadus and Draill that evening. The proposal was placed before me that I might give my father's lands to Torromaag as a gift, a show of goodwill between the two kingdoms upon our marriage. This would ensure that Thadus' armies oversaw one half of the Mistlands and Draill the other that they might ever join forces against any foes that might come from the sea. Having been willing to give up the whole in sacrifice to Draill days ago, I should have thought little of it as I pressed my father's seal into the hot wax of the document. But my heart felt chilled by the discussion of business. I had not seen Draill but a handful of times in the course of the two weeks since he had returned. Those few meetings had been weighted with duties, and our discourse had remained on plans for Woebolin. I assumed, as well as he, that I was his queen in this new beginning. Yet, something within me longed to hear that I was more to him than a partner in the establishment of his kingdom.

That night, I felt I was choking in the closeness of my bedchamber. Even after weeks of living in the queen's quarters, I felt like a stranger there. I yearned for the open air and the night sky, under which I had become accustomed to sleeping. Donning my cloak, I stole down the stairs to the mezzanine and passed into the gardens. Under the watchful care of the castle guard, I wandered among the flowers to breathe in their scent.

Anba had spoken to me very little in the weeks after the second Battle of the Mist. I knew she was with me, but her work was complete. She was content to let me strengthen my own discernment in the details of management and wedding preparation. My heart was given to service, but I was not at all content.

I rubbed my arms, chilled, though the series of warm nights and sunny days had continued.

"Are you cold, Esda?"

Draill slipped from under the tree against which he leaned. It was fully draped in leaves, so that I had not seen him. I looked back at the sentries, who remained at the fountain, and realized they'd been aware we were together in the gardens.

"Let me warm you, my love," he whispered, enclosing me in his arms.

Perhaps it was silly of me to be distant, but I had been without his amorous attentions for weeks and could not receive his embrace so readily. As I pulled away, I heard something tear. My sapphire ring had caught on a thread.

He held up his arm. "Look here!" he said, examining the billowy fabric. "My sleeve is torn. Again."

He feigned a sigh as a smile of remembrance spread across my face.

"Shall I mend it, milord?" I asked, teasing.

"Must you?" he responded with chagrin. His face was hidden from me since the torches of the castle were behind him.

"I suppose I could have one of my seamstresses—Draill!" I gasped; for he had stepped under the canopy of leaves and begun the task of unbuttoning the garment.

He stopped and laughed. "Lass," he said, enfolding me as we rocked beneath the leaves, "I must help you conquer this shyness."

I said nothing, realizing he'd been teasing me in return. Instead, I buried my smile in his shirt only to find my face pressed in the opening. His chest beat so soundly that I could not help but plant a kiss over his heart.

"'Tis dangerous ground you tread," he warned in a low voice. "Shall I follow?" He tilted my head back and, to my surprise, placed his lips upon my neck, mumbling, "Mm. Perhaps I should lead."

Pushing his hands away, I stepped out of his hold.

"No, you shall _not_." I was alive with the thrill of him, but I liked not to show it—not here in this public place with the eyes of the servants upon us. My heart was racing so that I felt I must run from him or be overwhelmed by his caresses. I turned and ran, entering the mezzanine as he caught my hand.

"Very well, Esda. I will let you lead," he coaxed. He trailed me to the foot of the stairs, his fingers holding my wrist loosely. "I will let you lead," he repeated, sliding his hand along my forearm beneath my cloak. I longed to step into his embrace again, but I did not trust my own strength.

I raised myself upon the first step and held up my fingertips for him to kiss. "I wish you goodnight, my king."

"Indeed," he said, taking my hand and giving it a peck. His tone was rueful, so that I pleaded with him not to be angry with me.

"It is only that I feel the loss of the power I possessed when you first offered me your hand to kiss, milady. I would wish to make you mine always. "

I thought of the nights we had spent on this island—together but leagues apart in understanding one another. I could not have imagined then the incredible force of the love I had now for Draill Adrun, King of Woebolin.

And so I answered, "Then you little know the power you have over me now, milord."

My hand was still in his possession as his eyes held mine briefly. I saw the glint of indecision in them. Would he test my resolve, seeing I admitted I was fully and truly under his spell?

"Goodnight, my queen," he whispered.

I ascended the steps, halted, and watched his figure fade into the shadows of the flickering torches in the hall below. Warmth filled my being as I realized the one I would call my husband on the morrow had loved me enough not to press what was not good. In this Draill had honored me and shown to me that he had a strength greater than the immortal one Cylla had used to bind him and his fathers before him. My heart was full. For I loved a man who had chosen to bind the evil and loose the good.

_Finis_


End file.
